Stolen
by Lapis Love
Summary: What if Damon had been the one manipulated into turning off his humanity and not by a bubbly blonde, but a bloke with a grudge and an accent ready to unleash something a doe-eyed doppelganger isn't prepared for but maybe a flawless witch.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This may end up being another 2-part mini-series, or this could end up being a one-shot, or something more. I can't really say. I've written Rippah! Stefan so I'm curious how I would do with no humanity Damon! Hmm…. What you need to know for this story is that I changed some events around. Read on to find out what. Enjoy!**

Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith/CW Network. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

**Skull Bar-Night**

"This is going to be simple," he licked his tongue across his teeth, ran the tip of the knife along his palm, not enough to cut into his skin but enough for him to feel it. "You want to save your bloody niece, then shut it off."

Blue eyes blinked rapidly. He heard the bastard clearly but wanted him to reiterate his preposterous statement again for clarification. "You want me to do _what_?"

Enzo dragged his gaze, lazily, toward Damon, top lip slightly curled upward in what had been dubbed his Elvis snarl. "You heard me perfectly well. You want the niece you thought you killed back in 1994 to live _today _then get rid of it. Turn off your humanity or I tell little Liam to start raiding her organs for sale on the black market."

"And what the hell is me turning off my humanity supposed to accomplish, Enzo?"

The vampire in question shrugged. "I don't know and I really don't care. This is a game to keep me awake before I start to petrify."

"Gotdammit, Enzo," Damon growled menacingly.

"Don't act like this is such a hard decision for you to make, mate," Enzo jeered. "You had no qualms flipping your switch back in the 50's leaving me to burn to a bloody crisp before going on your revenge crusade. Here, you're doing it to save a young girl's life that could have tragically ended because of your impetuousness. Aren't you about redemption these days? Or was that Stefan? Hard to keep track since it's mostly bordered on whom you're fucking."

Damon glared—balefully.

Yeah, Damon thought, he may have flipped his switch but that didn't mean he enjoyed it, or perhaps he did but he rather not think about that right now. The baby he thought died right along with her mother had survived, been alive all this time and he was kept blissfully in the dark about that. Now, his supposed 'best friend' found her and was using her as a bargaining chip. No fucking way.

This day, this week, this _century_ had started off with so much promise just to end up in this heaping pile of shit.

He wanted to accuse Enzo of lying, but when the instigator held up his cell and told Liam to make a 'Y' incision and his ears were filled with the blood-curdling screams of a young woman, pleading with him not to kill her, Damon wanted to vomit. Splash his boots with the blood and booze he had consumed earlier.

Damon wanted to kill Enzo where he stood. He could do it. Could fly over to him at Mach 7 speed, rip his head off, find Liam and save his niece.

"And before you think to end my life, you might want to stop and consider who else I may have compelled and what exactly I've compelled them to do," Enzo revealed with a cunning grin.

The blood left Damon's face. His chest heaved up and down out of reflex. His hands shook, but he slowly curled them—first into talons and then into fists, his nails digging into the palms of his hands.

"What have you done to Elena?"

Enzo snorted. "You're far too easy to manipulate, I just want you to know that. The question you should ask yourself is…who else besides your pussy of a brother and the nauseating doppelganger is important to you that I may have decided would provide more…motivation?"

Damon's skin began to tingle unpleasantly. This was a truth he admitted to himself in the dark recesses of his mind, but hadn't spoken a word of it verbally or publicly to anyone else. Why? Damon figured he couldn't afford to and something's were better left unsaid.

Five days ago had been the last time he saw her. Five days ago where she shared something with him, Damon never expected her to share. Ever. And if everything went to hell that may mount to being the last time he heard her voice or saw her face.

No, it couldn't end like this.

* * *

**Five days ago…**

She barged into his room smelling like candied apples and the strongest Russian vodka sold at only one place south of Mystic Falls. She hesitated in the threshold for a second, absorbing the muted light. The flames in the fireplace distracted her and earned a crooked smile for doing absolutely nothing.

Damon sat aside the book he had been thumbing through waiting for her to say something. He didn't think she'd want to see him after that night, the night of the rave, shoving Kai in her face because of his incessant need to get information on his mother. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, Damon figured he should have just tortured the information out Kai. But instead had subjected Bonnie to facing her abuser and he still had yet to sincerely apologize to her about that whole episode. Bonnie getting closure by entrapping Kai in 1903 notwithstanding, Damon suspected she was giving him space after giving him the cure, and of course catching him with Elena's neck in his mouth. The awkwardness needed time to dissolve.

"Are you drunk?" he asked, amusement dancing across his face.

"I wish I were," Bonnie strolled into the room, keeping her eyes on everything but him. "I wish I were drunk because then it would make this a whole hell of a lot easier."

"Make what easier?"

"Jeremy called me today," she blurted and twisted her fingers. Damon gave no outward reaction to the news. Bonnie pressed onward. "He called me…wants me to fly out to see him, but I don't know. It would be so easy to let things fall back into place like I'm the same person, but…I'm not."

"So tell him that."

"He's a Gilbert which kind of makes him a weakness."

Damon's brows lifted. On that end he could certainly sympathize—when it came to Gilberts or _a_ Gilbert being a weakness. But Jeremy was so fucking irrelevant, in his opinion he didn't see what the fuss was all about. Then he had an unsavory thought some may view his current girlfriend in the same light. To that he squirmed a little on the bed.

"Did you come all this way for my advice..?"

"No," Bonnie cut him off and stepped closer. "I'm here because there's something I need to tell you and it'll probably be the most selfish thing I've ever said."

Normally, Damon was all for hearing juicy gossip but with the way Bonnie was staring at him, the way she kept moistening her bottom lip with her tongue, the way her breathing changed to pants, and the sound of her heart thudding against her ribs were signs that what she had to share would throw a _huge_ monkey wrench into_ his_ life.

"What…is it?" Damon asked cautiously, and planted his feet on the floor.

"I…I need you to know I didn't intend for any of this to happen. I didn't just go to bed and wake up one day saying…" Bonnie stopped herself, smiled nervously before rubbing her forehead in frustration. She whispered to herself, "This is so hard," before sniffing and taking in a deep breath. "I was angry at you for a long time after the Kai incident. Even after getting closure, something about it just continued to bother me. Normally I'd let stuff go, but I couldn't."

"Bonnie you shouldn't have to let go of what you're feeling. He hurt you, repeatedly, and I didn't make a bad situation any better by doing what I did."

"I understand that. My reason for being angry stemmed from another place than just Kai hurting me though that was a _major _part, don't get that twisted. I realized…I realized…"

Automatically Damon reached for her hand as his way of letting her know it was all right. She could tell him anything. He wouldn't judge…much. Bonnie looked down. Looked at their joined hands, the dichotomy of softness and strength.

"It bothered me so much because I thought things between us were different. They _are _different and I had, maybe, foolishly placed expectations on you."

"A common symptom when you spend too much time with me listening to the 90s greatest hits," he tried for levity.

That earned another tremulous smile. Bonnie looked at him unblinkingly. "Damon…I-I realized my feelings for you changed because…I love you…I_-I'm in love with you_…"

Her lips moved, sound came out, words, a symphony almost that Damon had to strain his little vampire ears to hear. And when he put the pieces of her quietly spoken sentence together in his head, he instantaneously dropped her hand and bolted to his feet.

Damon's hands went to the back of his neck where he squeezed it almost to the point of breaking his cervical bones. He stepped around Bonnie and flashed in front of the fireplace. He didn't know what to say to her or what she wanted to hear from him, but a declaration of love…outside of the bounds of friendship…

His hands came to rest on his hips; his teeth gnawed the inside of his cheek. He was dumbfounded. Utterly dumbfounded. She had to be joking, but since she wasn't laughing at his expense and there wasn't a camera crew popping out of hiding, this was in fact real. Her feelings, those three words that usually made his head spin and feel too light on his shoulders when confessed by someone _he _loved, it was all real. Damon Salvatore was rendered speechless.

Minutes may have passed before he spoke. "I don't know what to say."

"Clearly."

He pivoted to face Bonnie. She appeared the most vulnerable he'd seen her since that ill-fated night, but now he recognized she was steeling herself for his coming rejection.

"I'm not expecting you to say it back. I know you don't…love me in that way," her eyes dropped to the floor.

"It's not that it's just…"

"Just what?" Bonnie insisted he elaborate.

"I just never thought the two of us would ever get to a place where there were any real feelings…friendship or whatever shared between us. I know how it happened I just don't understand how it happened," he snorted bewilderedly.

"Are you wishing I hadn't said anything?"

In a way, yes Damon did wish Bonnie had kept her mouth shut. She was too good a person to not have her feelings reciprocated and especially by an asshole like him. He knew he didn't even deserve her friendship on his most well-behaved days. Yet he understood that once someone found lodgings in Bonnie Bennett's heart it was damn near impossible to get evicted. He didn't want to hurt her, cause her anymore pain but he wasn't free to give her anything but his adoration and that was something he could only do from a distance.

Still, he didn't want her to believe he didn't have any affection for her whatsoever. When he thought about it, his relationship with Bonnie was the healthiest he's ever had, and because of that he wanted to hold on to it. Tightly. But now, he might have to let that go. For her.

"I don't want you to think I don't care about you, Bonnie. I do. More than I can say."

"You just see me as a friend, can only see me as a friend," she filled in sadly.

Damon's mouth went on strike and refused to cooperate. So he had to settle with motioning his head up and down, minutely. He immediately averted his gaze unable to view that disappointed expression overtaking her features.

"I should…" Bonnie didn't finish her sentiment. Merely charged for the bedroom door, but paused, "I could love you so much better than anyone has ever loved you before, Damon. And…if you let yourself you could love me the way I need to be loved…"

* * *

Bonnie's words replayed over and over in his mind as he stood and watched as Enzo began eating from a jar of olives, the sounds of Sarah's screaming growing louder yet fainter with time.

A muscle in his jaw flexed, "What have you done with Bonnie?"

Enzo sucked olive juice off his finger before replying, "Aww, so you admit there's something between you and the little witch?"

"JUST ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!"

"Not until I have your word of compliance to my stipulation. You can save them both with just the flip of a switch."

"And how do I know you won't order Liam to kill Sarah and whoever has Bonnie to kill her, too once I do it and not able to give a damn about either one of them?"

"Now, you're catching on, mate. Quite the conundrum ain't it?"

"Enzo," Damon snapped, his patience officially null and void.

"All right, I see you're getting anxious and you tend to do stupid things when anxious," Enzo theatrically cleared his voice. "Liam," he spoke into the speaker phone, "hold off in removing Sarah's spleen. I need to put you on hold for a second." Enzo switched to another line, called another cell. "Hey, how is our esteemed guest?"

Damon increased his hearing to catch every little nuance. He heard wind chimes, and…the tweet of a Le Conte sparrow…a television was blasting. This wasn't helpful in the least because those things were way too common anywhere in Virginia. So he focused on the timbre of Bonnie's captor's voice.

Male, possibly in his mid to late twenties. No discernible accent of any kind. Again, something else that was way too common.

"She's still out like a light."

"Good…I have a bit of bad news, you might be releasing her soon."

"Aww, man shit, really? She's cute."

"Precious, isn't she?"

"If he touches her…" Damon vowed.

Enzo flicked his eyes at him—annoyed, "Last chance, Damon before I take my offer completely off the table and it's a permanent good night for both of those goddesses."

At that time, Stefan and Elena burst into the Skull Bar.

"New arrivals," Enzo retorted drily. "You're just in time for the show."

"Where is my niece, you sonofabitch?" Stefan demanded.

Enzo for the most part ignored the self-righteous prick and refocused on Damon. "Well?"

Elena helplessly looked between the two of them.

Damon knew his time was up. His fate was sealed. From the very beginning of this charade he knew there was only one option, one choice to make.

"Stefan…" he addressed his brother without taking his eyes off Enzo, "bring me back."

The younger Salvatore was positively confused, at first, and when it clicked he moved to stand next to his brother, but had to dodge out of the way of a broken broomstick turned javelin that had been headed straight for his gut.

Stefan glared at Enzo who wiggled his fingers.

"Damon," Elena tried, "what's going on? What's happening? What is Enzo making you do?"

"Just save them," Damon ordered. "Save Bonnie and Sarah…"

"Bonnie?" Elena questioned wondering what she had to do with anything.

She and Stefan had been informed by a disinterested Caroline that Enzo was up to something involving the Salvatore's only living relative. Of course finding out they had a living relative was a shock but one she quickly got over. The two had gone off in a search to find them both. To save Sarah and stop Enzo from hurting her. So Bonnie somehow being caught in this threw Elena for a loop.

But Elena replayed Damon's words to his brother. _Bring me back…_so that could only mean…

She gasped and was prepared to launch a cross examination, but Damon held up his hand to quiet her.

They stared at one another. Elena's doe eyes filling with disbelief, Damon's filling with resolve.

"Find my emotional trigger and bring me back," was the final set of instructions Damon gave before closing his eyes, taking an axe to the threads that held his core intact, his soul, his very reason for existing.

With each cut string a void of darkness invaded. Emotions made obsolete. When he came to the last one, saw her face, he hesitated.

"Bring me back," he projected that thought, and then sliced that thread irrevocably.

The fiend chained to his rock was loosened.

**~Fini~**

**A/N: Soooo what do we think? Thanks for reading! **


	2. And So It Begins

**A/N: Here it is, the second chapter which can sometimes make or break things. (I'm hoping to make things). The response to chapter 1 was…WOW overwhelming to say the least. A thousand THANK YOU's to everyone whose read, reviewed, added to your list of faves, or is now following! Y'all know how I'm always overly critical of my work, but writing No Humanity Damon…was not expecting it to be difficult because I don't see him being a complete 180 from regular Damon, ha. So I don't know how you'll feel about this chapter, but I'll let you be the judge. Thanks for reading. This contains some…graphic stuff. **

Disclaimer: These characters (apart from my OC's) are the creative property of LJ Smith/CW Network. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Stefan had three decisions to make. One, kick Enzo's ass. Two, go after his niece and Bonnie. Three, try to convince his brother not to do anything stupid, which saying that to a vampire without its humanity was the equivalent of asking fire not to burn. He could delegate one or two of those things to Elena, but knowing how easily distracted she could get especially where Damon was concerned, he felt it was up to him to accomplish all three before dawn.

He already knew that wasn't going to happen. For now, he ignored Damon. Ignored the way his once rigid posture mellowed into the supremacy of indifference. Ignored Enzo's self-righteous veneer. Ignored Elena's blubbering.

"Where are they?" Stefan asked on a low growl.

Enzo preoccupied himself with watching Damon carefully to make sure he wasn't pretending to have cut off his humanity. There had been no flicker of recognition or indication he cared to hear whatever was said in response to Stefan's question. Instead, Damon strolled across the hardwood flooring to the bar, rifled around until he found a bottle that met his standards, clutching it in his possession.

Pleased that Damon was swimming around in his own head, Enzo regarded the younger, uptight Salvatore. "Now it's your turn to make a choice, Stefan."

"_What?"_

"My deal was for Damon, not you, but since you rode in here on your ambivalent steed," Enzo pointedly looked at Elena who frowned, "This adds another level to the game."

"You think playing with lives is a fucking game?" Stefan was very close to losing his temper. And Stefan could become a real mean bastard when he was pushed to do so.

Enzo rolled his dark expresso eyes. "I would school you on what life is but I don't have the patience or the time. You want to save your niece or Bonnie, but I can guarantee you'll only have enough time to save one."

"Fuck," Stefan swore softly and stabbed his fingers through his hair.

"You got what you wanted, Enzo. Just tell us where they are and we'll go, separately, to get them," Elena bartered.

"That's too easy. Should I let our humanitarian Damon decide?"

"NO!" Stefan and Elena roared in unison.

Enzo chuckled and cricked his neck. "Spoil sport. The both of you. Fine. One of them is located somewhere at Mystic Falls Hospital Center, the other in a shabby hotel off Route 5. Happy hunting."

With a wiggle of his fingers and a promise to catch up to his old running mate later, Enzo disappeared.

During the entire exchange, Damon had unscrewed the cap off the bottle of Hennessy and taken it straight back to the head. He let out an exaggerated sigh of pleasure, and swaggered his way to the door without sparing his brother or that chick with Katherine's face a single glance.

"Damon?" Elena tried. He hesitated, with one hand on the door and looked at her over his shoulder. "Whatever happens…no matter what remember…I…I love you."

It was her first time saying it to him since they rekindled whatever it was they had. She expected to feel a huge sense of relief to finally speak aloud what had been percolating in her guts. Yet Elena couldn't pin down the date of origin this love she now felt for him, and it didn't matter anyways. She knew what she felt and she was going with it. All she could hope for was her sentiment penetrating deep inside his psyche.

Naturally her candor had no effect on Damon who snorted derisively. "Aww," he crooned. "So," he deadpanned and like a paycheck on Friday he was gone.

Elena was prepared to take off after him, but found herself straining against Stefan's tight hold on her wrist. He swung her around to face him. "What are you doing?" she nearly shrieked.

"Not now. _Go_ find Bonnie. Worry about Damon later."

The doppelganger was ready to argue, but censored her onslaught at Stefan's raised eyebrow and stern look. She nodded compliantly.

Using vamp speed the former high school lovers took off hoping they wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Bonnie was in a semi-darkened room. The only light came courtesy of a lone halogen bulb from overhead. Small beads of sweat peppered her forehead and coated her upper lip. The room was sweltering but really it was her own natural body heat making her slightly uncomfortable. Anxiety coiled her muscles into knots. Her clothing felt too restrictive, the dark hosiery swaddling her legs was akin to latex paint.

A dull throb beat annoyingly right in her ears and her tongue was parched.

Being alone and on her own was nothing new to Bonnie. Scared of the unknown, the inevitability but willingness to do whatever was necessary to survive she was no stranger to that, either. She just didn't want things to be pointlessly dragged out.

"Come _on_," she intoned.

The rhythm of her heart changed when a door located in the back opened. Dim light from the hallway spilled inside but the way to freedom was immediately barred. A man prowled toward her, very muscular in size. His silhouette cast daunting shadows in every which direction. Bonnie sat up straighter pressing her back firmly into the chair she occupied. She didn't look away as he drew closer, unsure of where or how he might strike but wanting to be aware of his point of attack. Her mouth moved to form words, but she found herself linguistically challenged, mute.

What could she say to him anyways? He more than likely wouldn't listen.

The man didn't stop approaching until his legs crashed into hers. The contact made Bonnie gasp and jerk out of reflex because she was still unused to people touching her, of making contact with strangers. It always sent off little triggers in her brain to panic and defend herself. Flee, find shelter someplace familiar. She couldn't do that now.

Bonnie's gaze traveled up ignoring his barrel of a chest, and angled her head to get a better look at the man's face. It was obscured in shadow putting her at a grave disadvantage.

Just right beneath the surface of her skin her magic burst to life. She was thrumming while the speed of her breath quickened.

"What," her voice cracked and she roughly cleared it and tried again, louder and more self-assured. "What are you going to do to me?"

Although she couldn't see it Bonnie knew he was smiling. Was it calculating like Klaus', cocky like Damon's, arrogant like Ripper Stefan's, or maniacal like Kai's? Bonnie really didn't want to know. On that she could remain in the dark on.

He kneeled down to his haunches, "What am I going to do to you, she asks? Hmm. What I've been paid to do. Time to get started."

She couldn't get a protest out before the man was standing at his staggering full height, and reached for something in his pocket. The next thing Bonnie heard was music. Something slow and mellifluous that caused her nerves to go haywire. Miniature white strobe lights began orbiting around the room.

She could see him a little better. _The stripper._ Well-defined arms, ripped abdomen, amazing pecks, thick muscular thighs and perfect ocher skin began moving sinuously in front of her. A sleeve tattoo covered his left arm and his thin locks were tied back in a ponytail that he loosened.

Bonnie's mouth went dry. She wanted to see his face, wanted to see if it matched the rest of the package. Her eyes dripped to said package and ballooned. The bulge behind the fly of his camouflage pants was simply...Bonnie hadn't seen anything that big before. Her brain exploded with curiosity but remembered she wasn't here to touch. She was here to forget about those damning words that came flying out of her mouth that she should have taken to her grave. It was too late now to redact.

The male exotic dancer straddled Bonnie, taking care not to touch her as he pumped his hips back and forth. Her jaw loosened. The hundred dollar surcharge so far was turning out to be a good investment.

Unfortunately her mind began to wander.

The universe had been kind to spare Bonnie constant run-ins with what her brain was slowly starting to perceive as the obstacle between her and what her heart wanted.

Avoiding Elena after her red shoe diary confession had been easy enough. Their class schedules kept them apart during the day and at night Elena was with Damon, much to Bonnie's resentment. The only time the two ran into each other was in their dorm room the night of the 'incident' as Bonnie dubbed it in her head. Elena had been in the throes of packing another overnight bag, inadvertently flaunting her relationship with Damon in her face.

Bonnie had cried the entire ride back to Whitmore, and was semi composed by the time she reached her room. Running into the girlfriend of the guy she declared her love to…the lights flickered a little bit.

Elena could smell the saline on her and forgot her packing for two seconds to question Bonnie on what was wrong. Naturally Bonnie downplayed any significance that things were remiss, and blamed her melancholy on missing her family, which was true but not the real reason behind her tears and dejected mental state. Elena accepted her answer and refreshed Bonnie's memory that they were family, and if she needed her she was there. Bonnie quietly thanked her and promptly got missing in the bathroom before a deluge of tears sprung, and the guilt that lightly gnawed her stomach on her trip back to the dorms turned into real gluttony.

No one needed to spell it out to Bonnie how hollow Elena's words were, how standard. How they never meant anything beyond the superficial. Elena was there in theory, but had seemingly forgotten how to read her friends, be empathic towards anyone beyond herself. Bonnie couldn't say it was all Elena's fault. What, with things constantly out to kill her, people battling for the chance to love her, and people bending over backwards to save her life it gave Elena a Narcissist-like complex. The doppelganger didn't really want to hear about anyone else's problems especially if they cut into hers.

Bonnie hadn't done herself any favors by remaining tight-lipped on all the fucked-upness of her life, hoofing it in a one-woman show because she thought that's what she had to do as a Bennett. No one a part from Damon knew the full monty of what happened to her in the prison world, and boy did he learn that day. But now she ruined that precarious friendship with her confession and Bonnie felt utterly alone once more.

So tonight she wanted to forget about everything. Forget she was damaged and broken and heart heavy, sullen, jealous, and bitter. She didn't want to think about "her", the Bonnie others took pleasure in kicking around, but wanted to think about _her_, the Bonnie who wanted to feel free, young, and desired.

Maybe being in a strip club about to receive her first private lap dance wasn't the way to go about things. Bonnie just wanted to do something _very_ far removed from her usual routine. She was tired of being complacent and dead on the inside.

The stripper was rolling that powerful body of his in ways that made her blush and squirm. Bonnie wished she had taken her dorm mate's offer to get a drink before abandoning their small table out in the main part of the club. She sure could use something to wet her palate to make up the deficit in losing saliva by the liter.

Magnum, her entertainer for the evening, was writhing on the floor moving in hypnotic pumps that left no guessing in how he was in bed, arching his back, rolling his stomach showing off his agility and acrobatics. Bonnie was only vaguely aware of her other motor functions. Between panting and holding her breath she was delightfully dizzy, and the next thing Bonnie knew her eyes were being filled with possibly the longest and thickest dick she had ever seen in her young adult life.

She would never be the same again.

Magnum was at full salute and lewdly massaged himself right in front of her. He was the very definition of _hung. _His manhood was probably the length of his forearm if not longer. Bonnie almost looked away, face flushed with embarrassment and something seedier. She pressed her crossed legs tighter.

Magnum dropped to his knees, "I can smell your arousal."

That made Bonnie self-conscious but excited. He wasn't a vampire was he?

"You want to touch it?" Magnum held himself by the base and jiggled.

"I thought touching was against the rules," her words were barely audible.

"Nothing is against the rules here. I'm here for _your _pleasure."

Bonnie was absolutely positive the tips of her ears were burning bright cherry red. She got lost in watching the motion of Magnum's hand stroking himself becoming…she leaned forward unable to believe…was he getting bigger?

"One little touch," he insisted. "I want to feel your skin, beautiful."

"N-no," Bonnie sputtered and blinked rapidly.

"You sure?"

"Um…yeah. I think. But…thanks?" she almost smacked herself on the head for sounding so lame.

Magnum visibly pouted, got up, and finished his session.

An hour later, teetering in her heels, holding on to her dorm mate Koffi Courtenay and giggling, Bonnie's cell which she had turned off once they arrived and turned back on after leaving, began vibrating.

Digging it out of her coat pocket she saw Elena's name on the screen. Grimacing, Bonnie sent her call to voicemail and soon became cognizant of the sheer number of calls and text messages she missed.

Being encouraged by inebriation, on top of the delicious taste of succulent memories given by Magnum's stellar performance, Bonnie didn't want anything to ruin her high. She didn't care the how, why, when, or where of people blowing up her phone. She was not the maid.

Koffi caught her grimace and asked, "Parole officer?"

Bonnie elbowed her companion. Over hot cocoa spiked with rum Bonnie purged what had been weighing on her heart to the afrocentric Women's Studies major, leaving out no illicit detail, aside from names and physical descriptions of the cast of players. The moment she was finished, Koffi stared at her sympathetically, and told Bonnie she had twenty-four hours to feel sorry for herself before turning herself into Koffi's Crushed Dreams Treatment Program. Her motto: If there's a particular dick you want and can't have then you can certainly ogle another in the meantime.

"Did you have fun?" Koffi snickered and hiccupped.

"Are my eyes naturally green?"

"I knew there was a lil freak in you under all those layers, Bonnie. They'll be performing again next week."

Bonnie tried to appear affronted. "What would my grandmother say if she knew I had been spirited away to a place like this?"

"She'd probably ask you to spot her change for a twenty," Koffi cackled raucously.

Bonnie twisted her lips, "You're terrible."

"And you're horny. Girl you came out of that room with your pupils so enlarged you probably could have seen alien life on Neptune."

Heat passed over the young witch's face. "I saw something alien all right."

"You did. The freaking schlong of civilization!"

The two of them burst into keening laughter.

Bonnie settled into the passenger seat once they clumsily made their way to Koffi's Kia Soul. Her wild laughter tapered off into intermittent chuckles and before she could stop it her good mood was dissolving. That scene in Damon's room came back full force accompanied by humiliation and heartache.

"Dammit," Bonnie pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.

I should have never told him the truth, she thought, should have guarded my secret and kept my mouth shut and maybe the hurt I'm trying to mask wouldn't hurt so much.

Unrequited love was one thing, but living with the fact that Damon was aware of her feelings and couldn't return them was devastating.

Koffi laid a hand on Bonnie's shoulder. "You're thinking about him again, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry. I know its defeating the purpose of coming out, having fun, but I can't…"

"Bonnie, stop beating yourself up about this. You're human. So what you told a guy you like him and he couldn't say the words back. You have a lot going for you right now. Is being in a relationship really the end all be all?"

Bonnie didn't reply. She understood that in telling Damon the truth meant the possibility of sacrificing their friendship. She couldn't believe she was in this position again having to give up something valuable to prevent any onset of awkwardness. And things would be awkward once they had no choice but to be in each other's presence. She may have silently judged her friends for basing their emotions, moods, level of self-worth and esteemed on the people they were involved with instead of being content in themselves. But she could say she envied Caroline and Elena at times because no one had been shy in letting them know they were wanted.

The first guy Bonnie encountered after returning told her she was hot and tried to get frisky with her, she burned him. The other who suddenly grew a pestering need to apologize and get on her good side had nearly driven her to kill herself. Even Damon himself had disregarded her wishes not to see or speak to Kai ever again. Her history with men was deplorable. They lied straight to her face, made her believe she was powerful, but only wanted her around for selfish reasons. And then she had to go and fall for Damon who proved incapable of loving anyone who didn't share Katherine's likeness.

"No it's not," Bonnie finally answered and stared at Koffi. "But it's more than just being in a relationship. I'm just… sick of being alone, _period_. You don't know what I've been through in the last year and it's something not many would understand, but he does and…"

"Did you confuse his understanding with thinking he had real feelings for you?"

"No…I…I'm not used to talking about my problems…with anyone…with him I've never had to hide…much. He's always been there, you know? He understands me in ways that shock even me. We bonded, became friends, looked out for each other," Bonnie ended her pitch with a wistful smile. An annoying habit she recently developed whenever thinking or talking about Damon. "In many ways he's my best friend."

"That's great and everything, Bonnie," Koffi rebutted judiciously. "Sad news…he has a girlfriend. Until they break up and he deals with the baggage attached to that relationship, and comes to the conclusion you're the one for him there's no point in you sitting around waiting for something that may never happen."

Koffi felt Bonnie stiffen.

"Just keeping it one hundred. I don't care if it's Derek Luke,"—Bonnie laughed—"Don't ever put your life on hold for a dude. Don't ever wait around for someone to get their shit together. If it's meant to be it'll happen when it's supposed to. You're not alone, Bonnie. You have me."

"I know that, Koffi," Bonnie turned her head to look out of the window. If only that were enough…

* * *

There were mice, men, and things that ate men. Victims and assailants, saints and sinners, villains and heroes. He was none of those things now, not even a whisper. A slate wiped clean, void of any hint of consciousness above his own awareness of his being. A cipher locked in an indestructible body with an inhuman thirst for blood he would sate in whatever means satisfied his innate nature.

Damon Salvatore swept into the bedroom he acquired by taboo means. Yes, snapping the neck of one's nephew would be seen as taboo, but to him a means to an end. Zach Salvatore needed to learn his place and the unmitigated truth that one couldn't tame an animal and not expect the animal to strike back with lethal force.

Like Niccolo Machiavelli said: It is better to be feared than loved.

Damon visually combed the place from wood beam ceiling to floorboard looking for nothing in particular. Everything was exactly as it should be, in order right down to the arrangement of the pictures decorating his dresser.

Flashing before the inanimate object, Damon swiped up a photo frame. It was him smiling and lying on the grass, arm thrown around Elena, her lips on his cheek. His lip curled mostly at himself and how sappy he looked as if he had given Elena inalienable rights to his balls. In many ways he had relinquished utter and total control of his entire being to doppelganger number _trois_. She was to be the light to Katherine's dark, the virtuous to her wickedness, the compassion to Katherine's cruelty. So much for that, Damon snorted. Elena had proven not much other than centuries separated the two of them when it came right down to it.

There were five more framed photos just like this one each depicting some cheesy, staged moment between the two of them who sought bliss in living a lie.

If it weren't for Elena's looks Damon was about fifty percent sure he wouldn't have bothered to fuck around with her. She didn't have much of a personality. Had a tendency to adapt the characteristics of the guy she dated, yet carried an addictive quality that made it difficult to walk and stay away from her.

_That _particular yen was shattered.

Well his head was clear now, clearer than it had ever been in _years_. Strongholds Damon hadn't been aware that swirled around in his noggin were gone. Bonds removed and he could act and not give a shit about what happened afterwards. Liber-fucking-rating indeed.

Collecting the photos, Damon glanced around for a place to get rid of them. He knew it wouldn't take the girl long to find him and browbeat him with revelations about love to bring about his humanity. Nope, he'd just have to cut Elena off at the knees, and if that failed to work then he would _literally_ cut off her knees.

A huge chest across from his bed caught his eye and Damon walked over, opening the hood. It was filled with papers and other paraphernalia synonymous with a pack rat. What threw him momentarily for a loop was seeing a tawny brown teddy bear huddled in the corner of the chest.

Frowning, he dropped the frames. The glass shattered in one of them to which he ignored, and reached for the bear.

He looked it over as if he had never seen an object like it before, but Damon knew perfectly what it was and whom it belonged to. Unconsciously his tongue moistened his bottom lip.

The creak of a single floorboard sparked action. Damon moved lightning fast and jammed the bear deep in the chest, closed it, and faced the person sauntering into his room.

He was unsurprised it was Stefan. Damon gave him a caustic once over seeing splatters of blood on his brother's thin T-shirt, his hands lightly stained with it.

"You're looking…slightly less pathetic than normal…guess you saved that chick Enzo is trying to pass off as our niece?"

Stefan cracked his knuckles and dug the tip of his tongue in his cheek. He nodded. "We still haven't found Bonnie."

Damon laughed dryly. "Oh, little Bon-Bon will save herself. Besides dying it's the only other thing she's good at."

"Very nice, Damon," Stefan mouthed sarcastically.

The elder said nothing. Merely looked exemplarily bored. Unimpressed.

Stefan thought briefly of the attempts made to bring him back to his usual depressed self, and Elena back to being a less crazed version of herself. Those measures failed. Horribly. Serenading Damon with an interactive presentation of his greatest hits as a human and vampire wasn't going to cut it. Nor would torturing him to elicit fear, or any emotion to get him to lower the bridge and let his humanity back in would work. To accomplish this on one of the more obstinate people he knew, Stefan would have to go the tough, _real _tough love route with Damon.

His brother abhorred rejection and Stefan had every intention of exploiting that fact.

Stefan opened his mouth, but Damon interjected, "Listen, brother I don't think I need to make any threats because we've been through this before. So the winded speeches, we can skip all that," three long strides and the Salvatore brothers stood toe-to-toe. "You want my body count to remain in the double digits, don't aggravate me."

The younger smirked sardonically. "You without your humanity its just another Tuesday in my world. I've saved your worthless ass I don't know how many times. Taken the brunt of your anger, jokes, taunting, violence…I'm _done_."

A corner of Damon's eye twitched, but it happened so swiftly to the untrained eye it would have gone unnoticed.

He followed Stefan's spiel with mocking laughter. "_Please, _it's in your nature to save me although I've gotten quite good in proving I ain't shit, not worth the paper I'm printed on. It's still amusing to watch you put my life on a pedestal even with the knowledge I might one day fuck your ex in your bed," Damon smiled sickeningly sweet.

Stefan steeled his features, told himself not to react. He was no stranger to Damon's baiting.

"Or is it Caroline you like now? In our little circle she certainly gets around, or is the appropriate phrase 'passed around'?" Damon leaned closer to his brother and whispered, "It's funny but I thought you wanted to start over and not get with someone who has so much traction on her…"

Damon anticipated Stefan's closed fist to make acquaintances with his jaw. So he preemptively caught his little brother by the throat and squeezed. Stefan gagged but refused to go down, reached in his pocket and tried to stab Damon with a syringe filled with vervain. Damon caught him by the hand, bent it painfully backwards until Stefan had no choice but to let it drop to the floor or either get his entire hand snapped off in the process.

"Poor choice, little brother."

The brother in question didn't have time to do anything because in the next second Damon's fangs were tunneling into his neck. A brutal clamping down on his jugular that stunned and robbed Stefan of needless breath. Pain ripped through him. Hot like a cattail flogger scouring his entire body.

Stefan struggled to free himself, grunting, hitting Damon, but his blows were insufficient, didn't do a damn thing. His blood was simply pouring out of him at an alarming rate.

This was probably the highest indignity one vampire could do to another without consent, and made even worse on the basis they were brothers, _biological _brothers. It was insertion of superiority, the alpha smacking his bitch ass beta in check.

Damon released him taking a bit of artery with him that he ruthlessly spat out, and watched dispassionately as his brother dropped to the floor clutching his ravished neck, turning a ghastly shade of white.

He kneeled over Stefan, wiping his bloodied chin with the back of his hand, "You better hope to hell we never have this conversation again. I won't be so lenient next time."

Stefan's cheek received two sharp slaps and then he was left alone on a cold hard floor, and a new mess to clean up.

* * *

The streets were quiet. No little old ladies shuffling around to startle and set off their pacemakers. Their brittle bones his hands could easily smite into dust, after jacking them for their delicious blood. No young or middle aged women skulking about unawares of the dangers hiding in plain sight wrapped up in pale skin and striking features. No whores on street corners bartering fifty for a blow job, a hundred to fuck. This wasn't the kind of town for that much to his exasperation.

The area was pretty much deserted.

Nevertheless he kept his pace even along the sidewalk and arrived at his destination.

Humans needed to take better care with whom they trusted, Damon thought as he easily slipped inside the poorly guarded building, climbed the stairs until he reached the second floor. He tested the doorknob once reaching the room he wanted. It resisted but it took no more than a jerk of his wrist and the lock was broken. He crossed over the threshold and closed the door softly behind him.

* * *

Elena bust through the front door of the boardinghouse, frantic. She came to a stop once seeing Stefan sitting on the arm of the sofa drinking sullenly from a blood bag. The dense scent of blood filled her nostrils and made her own mouth water because she hadn't had any to drink since this morning. Hunger burned in her belly and her saliva glands swelled, but she pushed it aside.

"I didn't find Bonnie," she announced. "She wasn't at the hotel. She's not at the dorm. I keep calling her cell and she won't pick up. Either Enzo was lying about having her, or he lied about where he's hidden her. In any case we still need to find her. Now. Stefan?"

Stefan crushed the empty bag in his hand and swung his head in her direction.

Elena stepped into the living room, inspecting the remnants of the latest skirmish between the Salvatore brothers. She spied the dried blood on Stefan's neck, his disheveled hair, the fury darkening the hue of his greenish-gray eyes.

"What happened?"

Stefan rose to his feet. "What do you think?" That was a story he wasn't going to repeat to anyone. "Keep trying Bonnie. I'll go see if I can find Enzo."

* * *

He stood poised over her, looming next to her bed, watching her sleep. The gentle rise and fall of her shoulder, the soft words she murmured that had his ears twitching. His eyes dipped lower and focused on the vein jumping underneath a layer of caramel skin.

Damon Salvatore's bottom lip got caught between his teeth. This one he would savor until the very. Last. Drop.

Chapter end.

**A/N: Hardly any Bamon, yes I know, but its essential for what I have planned for next chapter. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think. **


	3. Sleepwalkers

**A/N: This effing chapter…nothing seemed to want to gel how I envisioned. But I'm putting this out because really it's been holding up corresponding chapters I'm more eager to get to. On a more positive note, I'm still awed by the fact that this story has received the amount of reviews it has just 2 chapters in. Thank you, guys, thank you! But this chapter right here, I'll let you be the judge.**

* * *

A sleepy coed waltzed out of her dorm room, yawning greatly and scratching her tousled bed head, grumbling. She was on her way to the lounge to get an hour of pre-dawn studying done since she had spent regular studying hours playing beer pong and Minecraft. Books secured loosely under her arm, she yawned again, but her yawn nearly choked her when she saw a black clad figure standing at the other end of the hall about to enter a room.

She stared mesmerized, feeling her cheeks grow warm then hot until finally they blazed. Her skin prickled with awareness as several alarms rang in her ears, but she disregarded them. She ogled the guy…for safety reasons. She had seen him a couple of times in passing, coming and going out of that same room. He never looked twice in her direction, such a pity.

However, that didn't stop her from hastily trying to tame her locks, and wipe the corners of her mouth hoping there weren't any incriminating drool tracks showing themselves.

The man lifted his head as if sensing her. She attempted to smile, but her face was frozen in perpetual shock at seeing him during the witching hour as her paranoid grandma used to say, looking nothing less than devastatingly handsome. A flare of jealousy that another chick was about to get the night—rather early morning of her life did pounce like a hungry lynx, but she tramped it down. About a million flirty greetings flashed through her mind, but not a single one came out.

She could curse the fact her face was probably the color of her name—Scarlet.

The man beheld her in a way that made Scarlet instantly think she walked out of her room stark naked. She had never come across someone who could dress her down without moving a single inch or peeling off a single layer. Her face turned hotter.

The guy smiled as if he knew what he was doing from the smug and hungry look on his ridiculous face. This had to be some type of assault, Scarlet mused.

Right before she was about to say "Good morning," in a hopefully sultry voice, the man pressed his index finger up to his puckered rosebud lips—the universal sign for "quiet".

She immediately obeyed, swallowed, and whimpered once she reached the staircase knowing she'd have to walk down them to get to the lounge, but that meant she couldn't engage in a poor game of eye-sex with the sexy stranger. Scarlet wondered what year student he was and his course of study, but she didn't think he actually attended Whitmore though. Like she said, she had seen him skulking around campus.

By the time she finished contemplating her next move, the guy was already gone. "Dammit," she whispered.

* * *

Her wrists were taken prisoner, anchored above her head. This made her back arch slightly, breasts lifting higher. A heavy weight wedged between her thighs. She moaned. It may have been a while, a _long_ while but she could never forget the feel of a tongue gliding up and down her neck in slow, sensuous licks that made her squirm to escape and get closer simultaneously. Her dream shifted course, (if this were in fact a dream) and she wasn't dancing under a mirrored ball, but sitting on a chair in a darkened room while layers of clothing hit the ground.

Her mind may not be fully cognizant; her body on the other hand knew what was happening, responded. Yet…

This didn't _feel _like a dream.

"…little witch…" sang a mocking voice.

Bonnie fought to open her eyes but she was so doggedly tired and hungover the action seemed impossible. She needed rest, her earlier excitement giving way to a slight mental breakdown precipitated by way too much alcohol and male nudity.

The weight on her top, shifted. Fingers ghosted between her hip and shoulder, gripped her hair, fisting it slightly before letting go. The tongue lapping at her neck was replaced with…teeth. _Hmm. _Two rows of razor sharp teeth digging downward, indenting her skin, breaking through it. Already she felt blood beading where the sharpest two teeth sank into her throat. Those inquisitive lips enclosed on that specific area, and she felt the first deliberate _pull_—suction on her skin.

Bonnie was wide awake then.

"What the…_get off!_" fell past dry lips, but the rest of her sentence was eaten up by sharp, piercing pain that beat in concert with her racing pulse.

She was pinned to the mattress in her dorm room, alone with a vampire trying to make a meal out of her. While her brain tried to play catch up and process what the hell was happening and _who _was feeding on her, her magic decided to skip the theatrics and get right down to the main event.

"ahhhh fuckkkkk"

Her would-be assailant released her to grab both sides of his head. That had been a male voice uttering that expletive, and it was a male voice she knew well enough.

"_Luminum," _Bonnie yelled. Each lamp in the room switched on. She squinted at the brightness and focused on the person crouching on the end of the bed staring at her with fierce hostility. "Damon? What the hell are you doing?" Bonnie's hand flew to her neck, to the area where she had been bitten.

Drawing her hand away her fingertips were stained with blood.

"I'm going to take that as a rhetorical question," Damon responded coolly.

Enraged, Bonnie ran after her bearings trying to get a hold of them. She was so confused she didn't know where to start. With Damon, with the fact he was gnawing on her neck, with the fact he was in her room scowling like _she _was in the wrong?

Her stomach heaved, a wave of nausea knocked her sideways. The bottom of Bonnie's mouth quickly filled with saliva, a telltale sign she was about to be sick. Yet she swallowed it back down. The taste was…wonderful, Bonnie grimaced.

She breathed like she completed a marathon. "What the hell possessed you to think it was okay to come into my room and…and do what you were doing to me?"

"The first time I ever touched you I subtly threatened you. The second time…I almost killed you."

Bonnie waited for Damon to say more. He didn't. What kind of a non-answer was that?

She didn't know and really did not a give a shit what his latest self-fulfilling crisis he was dealing with at the moment. He wasn't going to use her as…hell she didn't fucking know. Her head and stomach was upset with her, and Damon being in her room unannounced only added to her discomfiture.

Bonnie climbed out of bed. "I don't care." She crossed over to her dresser.

His eyes followed her. "You don't care…about…?"

"I don't care who you got into an argument with and why you felt the need to come into _my_ room and…and damn near assault me! Go take up your grievances with the person who actually pissed you off and leave me alone."

"Why do you think something someone said pissed me off, Bonnie? _Other _things could be wrong."

"And on any other day I'd care, but right now I don't."

Damon's eyes narrowed and he said icily, "Well you _should_ care."

She should care about the fact that he was holding on to his threadbare restraint with one hand, two fingers to be more accurate.

He was hungry. Starved. Tasting Stefan had been like eating raw lemons drenched in gasoline. Unpleasant like licking a dirty asshole. He wanted something divine on his tongue and had been _so close,_ but that inner spidey sense in the witch tipped her off and she burned his ass from the inside.

Bonnie faced him, opened her mouth to retort but then sealed her lips. She eyed Damon carefully. He seemed…like him but something was missing. Bonnie wished she could think clearly to get to the bottom of whatever she was picking up on, but her priorities lied with getting him the hell out of her room.

Cells drained, body sore, mouth dry, Bonnie turned back to her dresser fumbling around, looking for aspirin that she finally remembered was in the bathroom, and not buried in her sock drawer.

"Get out, Damon."

In a flash he stood impossibly close behind her. Bonnie yelped at his sudden nearness and with just a pinch of fear. She kept her back turned, a thousand and one different things flying through her mind.

His hand came around her neck and she froze. Scenes from another time with her trapped in this same position spun through her head. Little knickknacks on the dresser began hopping around. Breath brushed along her cheek and Bonnie braced herself to hear _his _voice crooning hotly in her ear. A dull roar began in the base of her skull, and her hands reached up, connecting with the ones holding her. Nails sunk into pale skin.

Blood flowed. Damon groaned at the sting. He thought…ah, yes she's thinking about that looney tune, Kai.

"I'm not him," Damon whispered. I'm much worse, he mused, because you trust me.

Bonnie held her breath even while Damon rubbed the spot where he semi-bit her. She winced. Sparks of pain shot forward and pinched her aorta, it seemed.

Damon grinned. He could do whatever he wanted. He could smell that. He could _sense_ that. She was completely paralyzed in his arms.

It's not _him_, it's Damon, her rationalism kicked in but it didn't lessen any of the tension. It grew thicker, in fact, cloying and suffocating.

Bonnie cursed there wasn't a mirror on top of her dresser so she could see Damon's face. He surrounded her from all sides, and though she never took explicit joy in inflicting pain on him because the pain itself was a demonstration of her own frustration, she would blow up his head if he tried anything. His fingers at the moment caressed her, but in the blink of an eye could rip her throat out or twist her neck.

Her entire body was rigid, posed to defend, to wait. Whatever was going on with Damon it was pulling at something inside her.

A whirl of movement caught vampire and witch off guard. One minute Damon was standing behind her, the next he was gone and slammed brutally against the far wall. Cracks splintered from where his back made impact.

Bonnie's head whipped to the left.

"You bit her," Stefan braced his forearm tightly against Damon's throat.

His eyes faded to black and red for only a split second. "Came to join me?"

Stefan's nostrils flared but he didn't answer yes or no.

Bonnie's head throbbed. She cupped her bleeding neck, gaze volleying between the Salvatores. She inched closer.

Stefan stretched out his arm behind him never taking his eyes off his brother. He warned, "Bonnie stay back."

"No, Bonnie come forward," Damon crooned and in a tactical move, gripped Stefan's wrist, twisted it and had his brother pinned against the wall. His thumb pressed on a pressure point that in about five seconds would knock his self-righteous ass unconscious. "You have an annoying habit of getting in my way."

"Damon," Bonnie tried.

"Yeah? So what?" Stefan gritted between clenched teeth. "Do what you do best or what you've been promising to do since 1864. Kill me."

"You think I won't?"

Stefan groaned; his eyes rolled a bit. "I _know _you won't."

Emptiness reflected back at the younger Salvatore and time froze because Stefan saw the surety of his death in Damon's eyes. He was going to go for his heart.

Bonnie—horrified lifted her hand, a spell right there on the tip of her tongue. The sprinklers above their heads turned on and icy cold water doused them. That stopped Damon momentarily. He glared at her over his shoulder.

"You know what comes next."

Damon roughly let Stefan go, or more accurately bashed his head on the fireplace mantle. Bonnie ignored that although she couldn't help but tense at seeing Stefan wilt to the floor, gripping his bleeding temple.

"And you know I can snap your neck before you get the chance to utter a single syllable. You want to prove whose dick is bigger, whip yours out."

"Incendia."

Damon's boots caught on fire. Okay. He hadn't _really _expected her to actually torch him, but he probably should have seen that coming.

* * *

By the time Bonnie stopped the sprinklers, Damon was gone; the puncture on Stefan's temple was mended, and most of Bonnie's and her friends' property was suffering from severe water damage. Elena's bed caught the brunt of it since it was positioned directly under a sprinkler.

She sat on her slightly damp bed. A warm, dry blanket was wrapped around her shoulders. Stefan was on the phone filling in Alaric about the situation. Elena was on her way to Whitmore.

Stefan had given Bonnie the shortened version of tonight's events while she informed the caramel-haired vampire of her whereabouts, and that she knew about his niece Sarah Salvatore. Of course it had been a jolt for the witch to learn the fetus Damon thought he killed right along with her mother had been alive this whole time.

Yet her mind kept rewinding back to five specific words Stefan said to her:

"_He turned off his humanity."_

Damon's behavior…him biting her…it all made perfect sense now. Something in Bonnie shattered at the news but a tiny part of her was shamefully…relieved? Damon with his humanity fully intact would never sneak into her room with the expressed purpose of killing her. No humanity Damon on the other hand…yes. She was his biggest threat.

"Why would Enzo lie about having me kidnapped? Why would he kidnap your niece to get Damon to turn off his humanity? Why would he want Damon to turn off his humanity in the first place? I can't believe your niece is actually alive."

Bonnie threw those questions at Stefan the minute he got off the phone. He took a seat across from Bonnie. He eyed the semi-bite on her neck. Damon hadn't managed to bite too deeply, but deeply enough to leave ripped skin and bruising behind.

"I can heal that for you," he offered. Bonnie nodded. Stefan pricked his index finger with a fang and proceeded to rub his blood into the wound. "I can't explain Enzo's rhyme or reason to anything he does. He vowed to pick up Damon's promise of giving me a lifetime of misery when he could have been hanging out with his crush once you brought Damon back. But he wants to be a petty asshole and destroy my family. We don't need any help in that regard."

The wound began to warm, tingle, and itch. "You've known this whole time that your niece was alive?"

"Yes," Stefan drew his finger away and watched as the bruising faded and Bonnie's torn skin began to stitch back together. "I rushed Gail…Zach's fiancée to the hospital where an emergency C-section was performed. Sarah…she lived in an incubator until she was able to breathe on her own, and was quickly put up for adoption. I compelled Zach to forget. Thought it'd be easier if he didn't remember Gail or his baby girl," Stefan said forlornly.

"Jesus," Bonnie uttered in bewilderment. "So how did Enzo find out about Sarah?"

"A girl named Monique came to Mystic Falls impersonating her. She…was involved with Jeremy," Stefan reluctantly volunteered that piece of information. Bonnie didn't react. He continued. "Monique had a picture of Zach and Gail claiming they were her parents. I…interrogated her. She finally admitted that she met Sarah at camp one summer. She claimed Sarah wanted to know more about her birth parents but was too scared to look into it, so Monique offered. I wish she had left it alone. Monique's dead…Enzo killed her…"

"That fucking prick."

Stefan concurred. "He went after my niece dragging her into the very shit I wanted to keep her out of."

"And now Damon is walking around without his humanity in trade for Sarah's life."

"Yours, too."

"I was never in any danger."

"We didn't know that," Stefan contradicted.

Bonnie stared at him imploringly. "How are we going to handle this?"

That Stefan didn't have an answer to. Not a simple one. Damon on an average day could be supremely stubborn and combative. "Torture and starvation will only make him more volatile."

"An emotional guilt trip won't work either since he's the least in tune with his emotions," Bonnie added.

"We're going to have to dig deep for Damon's emotional trigger."

Stefan and Bonnie gazes caught and held, but it was the witch who said, "You don't think you're his emotional trigger?"

"I trigger emotions in Damon but they're all the wrong ones."

And Bonnie _really _didn't want to bring this person up, but knew it couldn't be avoided entirely. "Elena?"

Stefan shook his head. "She has a hard time staying focused on the main issue."

Bonnie understood that was code for: Elena would make Damon's switch being off about her. Stefan was thinking of the time shortly after getting his memory back, standing in the woods at the place where he buried Silas confessing to Elena how he wished she had been the one to find him, or preferably Damon. But Elena overlooked his painful three months spent drowning while she went on and on about the summer of her life.

"True," Bonnie scratched her arm. "But…they're in love."

"You know that doesn't mean anything to Damon at the moment. All he cares about are _his_ basic needs: food, shelter, pleasure. Even if we took away one or all three…he'll lash out, people die, and we're no closer to getting back the Damon we love to hate who can sometimes be decent."

Bonnie snorted.

Stefan leaned forward. "However…my brother did provide he has a weakness."

"Which is?"

"You."

Bonnie's spine straightened. She didn't want to take that as a compliment, but she kind of viewed it as a compliment. In a very psychologically morbid way.

There had been a brief moment before Stefan wrestled Damon away from Bonnie where he saw his brother "holding" the witch. His hand around her throat—notwithstanding—had appeared more intimate than threatening. Stefan was sure of that.

"I'm not his weakness," Bonnie denied softly. "He came here to kill me because I'm a threat."

"Threats can we viewed as weaknesses because if a person is secure then they wouldn't feel threatened."

Eyebrows knitted together, Bonnie remarked, "You have the most experience being around Damon when he's off. How bad can he get?"

Stefan answered unequivocally. "Depraved."

* * *

Brian McKidd thought of himself as an okay guy. He used profanity too much at times, typically when he was highly pissed off or was "about-to-cum excited", didn't call to check up on his folks as much as he should, but that was life. He was too busy, had too many responsibilities to juggle, therefore, neglect ensued. He paid his taxes, believed in God but wasn't religious or anything like that. He liked to have fun, hang with his bros over beer and, when he could, bang the hottest chick in the bar.

He was in a committed relationship. Well…as committed as he could get. Simone was his steady but he did kind of talk to other girls on the side. In Brian's opinion it wasn't anything serious or misleading. Some light flirtation, but again, he wasn't promising happily ever after to any of the women he spoke with.

Simone liked partying as much as he did. Tonight they had frequented their favorite bar, shared some laughs over cocktails and potato skins. About half an hour before they were about to depart and head back to Simone's place, her hands getting frisky and Brian ready to get lucky, a guy in all black approached their table.

Brian immediately had gone on the defensive. The douche was _too _good looking and the way he looked at Simone like her tits and pussy were already exposed, made Brian want to pop dude in the mouth with his fist. But when he eyed the fucker in a stare down…he felt…weird. Off, like he was floating or he went for a walk but hadn't moved an inch. He heard himself invite the guy to sit down, bought him a drink like he was trying to pick him up. The man talked in an even, mellifluous cadence where Brian had a hard time denying the man's wishes. Although some vague part of him screamed to resist, get up with Simone, and leave. He never did.

Surprisingly, Brian and Simone were sliding out of the booth, following behind the man in the dark leather jacket. Where were they going? Brian had no answer and though he was mildly concerned, the guy promised they were all right. They just had to follow him. So he and Simone did. Brian slid behind the wheel of his car, and drove to a nearby hotel. Paid for the room.

The guy was on Simone in an instant, kissing her, fucking her mouth with his tongue, walking her backwards to the bed. Brian watched in stunned horror for a second, unable to move, unable or was it unwilling (?) to pull the man off Simone and wail on him, kick his ass from here to Timbuktu.

"Brian have a seat. Don't move. _Watch_."

"Okay," Brian mumbled and walked to an overstuffed chair and had a seat. He blinked occasionally but otherwise made no sound.

He watched, it seemed, for hours, hands gripping the arm rests wishing he could do something, but he was told to have a seat and not move.

Simone started struggling at some point. The man had his mouth on her neck probably giving her the hickey of her life, but…a line of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, down Simone's neck.

The man let go, detached, and faced Brian who, after getting a good look at his face, at what his face transformed into, Brian opened his mouth to yell.

A hand clamped over his mouth. Wide, frightened eyes stared up at the man…no-no this was no man. Men didn't have black on red eyes with spidery veins writhing underneath them or…_fangs_! Is this fucking Twilight!

Brian's heart boomed in his chest. He knew it. He knew he was about to die.

"What have you done, Brian?" the man asked.

I haven't done anything.

"I think you just killed your girlfriend."

Oh my god, I killed Simone?!

"I think you want to take her body to the nearest police station and confess to murdering her."

Yes, that's exactly what I should do.

"When they ask you why…tell them…you were bored."

Of course, why else would I murder Simone?

"And you'll forget ever seeing me. Understand?"

Yes, I understand.

Damon strolled out of the hotel, paused, and lifted up a pant leg checking out his skin. He had _finally_ healed hours after being set ablaze. He knew what he should do, but…shaking his head he put miles between him and the hotel.

The next time he crossed paths with Bonnie fucking Bennett, he'd be ready for her. Mark. His. Words. He would be ready.

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Please be merciful and leave me some feedback. **


	4. Games

**A/N: *blinks blearily* It's been a lonnnnggg time since I've touched this. I was ready to give up on it because writing non-humanity Damon is a pain I didn't think it would be. But I found some inspiration to churn out this chapter. I hope you enjoy! Thank you for your patience.**

* * *

In a flurry of hair, Elena charged up the stairs of her residential building, feet pounding.

All night Elena's mind had sailed to chartered and unchartered territories in what Damon might have done and whom he might have killed since leaving the bar. Had he spent the night drinking from random women and fucking them until they were dead? Did he kidnap anyone and played forensic pathologist with them? Elena didn't know and of course that worried her. No, she didn't remember her full history with Damon, and the scant pieces she could recall, served as a painful reminder vampires could be...evil.

Rounding the corner of the second floor, Elena almost plowed into a freckled faced girl.

"Sorry," she muttered, side-stepped the chick and proceeded toward her room.

"Oh, you might want to want to knock before going in there."

Elena whipped around to face the advice solicitor. Immediately she was ensnared, distracted by the girl's cheeks blooming rosier by the minute, which did nothing to quell Elena's hunger. It had been well over twelve hours since the last time she had a drop of blood. The girl's blood…the doppelganger could hear it pounding in her own ears, feel it rushing through her veins. Her gums started throbbing, saliva congealed in the bottom of her mouth. Elena sucked in a massive breath and forced herself to concentrate on not attacking.

"Why?" Elena finally asked.

"Your roommate…she had a guest. He might still be in there."

Elena's indrawn breath was audible. "Thanks," she muttered and quickly flew into her room.

The rubber soles of her boots sloshed through water. Umber irises took in the sight of the room, the water damage. Her nose could already scent preliminary mildew and mold building.

"Bonnie?"

The witch in question exited the bathroom fully dressed and looking no worse for wear. "Hey Ele—" the rest of her sentiment was cut off as she was pulled tightly into Elena's arms. "Okay…wow," Bonnie said once she was let go.

"Are you all right?" Elena appraised her for any telltale signs her friend came face to face with Damon.

Nodding, Bonnie skirted around Elena and continued to her bed. A suitcase sat perched atop of it.

"What happened last night? Where were you?" the doppelganger began her inquisition.

Bonnie neatly folded the clothes that survived the in-room storm she created by activating the sprinkler system. She reported the incident as faulty plumbing and was being moved temporarily to the grad student dorms which were arguably nicer.

"I was out with Koffi last night. We…went to a strip club."

Elena flounced on the bed for the moment ignoring the soggy duvet she sat on, her mouth open in surprise. "You went to a _strip club_?"

Bonnie glanced at the doppelganger. "Yeah. I had…" she giggled, "I had fun."

"I would imagine. So you never crossed paths with Enzo? He never compelled or paid someone to kidnap you?" Elena knew all of this, but had a bad habit of repeating facts only so they could make sense in her frazzled head.

"I haven't seen Enzo since I've been back," Bonnie replied. She had only technically been back for a week. Coming across him had been the last thing on Bonnie's to-do list. And she hadn't been checking for him either. Now that he wanted to play games, that was going to have to change.

"Damon…what happened with him? Stefan didn't give a whole lot of specifics," Elena queried.

A dimple appeared on the corner of Bonnie's mouth. "He showed up here, tried to bite me but I used my magic to get him to stop. He was being weird, weirder than usual and I had a feeling something was up with him, just didn't know what," Bonnie tossed another pile of folded shirts into the suitcase. "We talked for a bit and he was standing behind me right over there," she nodded in the direction of her dresser. "That's when Stefan showed up and told me what happened. He and Damon got into it. I set off the sprinklers and set his boots on fire. He fled."

Elena absorbed everything, seeing it play out in a scenario she was sure she had been an eyewitness to, too many times. "He could be anywhere now."

"Yeah."

Both young women brooded over that and how dangerous it was to let Damon wander around in his present state.

Elena finally caught on to what Bonnie was doing. "Why are you packing?"

"I'm moving into the grad dorm until the room is disinfected, cleaned."

"Oh…"

"Are you going to stay at the boardinghouse?"

"I haven't given it much thought. I guess I could stay there. Or I could stay with Matt. My living situation isn't my top priority at the moment."

Bonnie nodded absently and continued packing.

Elena nibbled her lip before rubbing her tired face. "What are we going to do about Damon?"

"I…I don't know why," Bonnie began, "but I feel like I can get through to him." She had had time to think about her conversation with Stefan who boldly hinted she could be key in unlocking Damon's humanity. Bonnie would hold off in running with those particular scissors, but she understood him better than she did a year ago. Learned things about him she could use to her advantage. It was worth a shot.

Besides, Bonnie liked to believe he'd do the same for her.

"Damon could hurt you," Elena forced her out of her musings.

"I know. But our alternatives are what?" Bonnie chucked her panties and bras next. "We inflict pain? He was experimented on for years in the 50's. That won't faze him because he survived. Every painful encounter he suffered, he survived. Fear won't get him to turn his humanity on."

"What if we trick him into thinking I'm dead?" Elena suggested. "You could desiccate me or do a glamour where it appears I've been staked. When I thought Damon had killed Matt that's what triggered me to turn my humanity back on."

"And because of that Damon wouldn't fall for it. He'd know it was a ploy," Bonnie dismissed.

"What if…he thought he was the one killing me?"

Bonnie raised a brow, had a thought, and canned it. "It's too risky. What if he does kill you, then what? He'd never turn it on again."

"Well I'm out of ideas. Stefan thinks it's best to ignore Damon and wait for him to make the first move, which he already did by coming here with the intent of killing you." Elena studied her petite friend for a moment, replaying something Bonnie said earlier. "Why do you think_ you_ could convince Damon to flip his switch?"

The question was wrapped in layers of accusation and possibly jealously. Bonnie only faltered for a second seeing the trap and wondering if she should fall into it. Instead, she went the safe route, the default.

"I'm a witch. My kind created vampires. We should be able to control them. That means emotionally as well."

"Bonnie," Elena rose to her feet. "It's not on you to save Damon. Besides, he asked me to bring him back," she laid a hand on her chest.

That wasn't entirely true, Elena knew this. The request had been made of her and Stefan, but as Damon's girlfriend, Elena felt the bulk of this particular weight landed on her shoulders. She had been informed on the times Damon had bent the rules, went against the grain to save her life. She'd repay him, be the one to bring him back from the brink. And she wouldn't need magic to do it either.

Bonnie could clearly see the pissing contest Elena was determined to have. She could poster and argue all she liked, but at the end of the day they and everyone knew who would come to the rescue. Like always. It wouldn't be Katherine's clone.

Bonnie zipped up her suitcase and hefted it off the bed, lips pursed. "I'm going to help Damon, and I really don't need your permission to do so. I can get through to him."

The two friends held one another's gazes before Bonnie made her way to the door. Yet Elena's next words stopped her from making an escape.

"Four months alone with him doesn't change who he's been for nearly two centuries."

The green-eyed witch glanced over her shoulder, "Neither has fucking pussy from the same family. Things have to start somewhere, right?"

* * *

He lost count of how many he watched his brother gorge himself on. Gripping the bottle, strangling it in his fist, Stefan Salvatore supplemented his hunger with booze hoping to kill the cravings, stave off the thirst. The metallic potency of lifeblood titillated his senses made him drunk with need. He refused to unpark his ass from the barstool, afraid if he moved so much as a solitary inch, he'd join his brother and be one artery away from ripper-dom.

Of course Damon knew Stefan was here in this establishment. Had felt the dweeb follow him inside. Maybe he should feel honored. His little brother was as obsessed with him as the doppelganger, but Damon was…he didn't have an adequate word for Stefan's interruption of him and the witch. Pissed, maybe. It was a start. The elder was simply going to make the younger regret it.

"You know you want to, brother," Damon goaded like a damn blood pimp. "I'm drinking prime 1989 AB positive."

Over and over, Damon flitted from person to person, leaving people in a fugue of ecstasy and near-death. They wanted him, he got what he needed, and he moved on. Though he waited for Stefan to ride in on his white horse to save these cows. He never did.

Now_ that_ was different.

He could say he was feeling envious. And tempted. Stefan was. How long had it been since he gorged, guiltlessly. Some thought his inhumanity was the animalistic and amoral manifestation of his blood addiction. No. It was the ripper. The part of him that thought a corpse would look better shredded beyond recognition, but then his conscience would kick in, and he'd put those pieces back together. He was a serial killer just like Damon. Whereas Damon never pretended to hate that side of himself, relished it, Stefan fought against it.

The struggle to remember why he was here and not partake was very strong.

Stefan watched as Damon peeled back a tiny strip of skin on his latest victim. The miniscule droplets of ruptured veins and capillaries converged into a flood of crimson that soaked the hapless woman's shirt.

Snapping his head away and cursing violently, Stefan tore off the stool and flashed his way to the exit. He couldn't take it. The pain in his gums nearly enough to have a lone tear streak down his cheek. He knew his face was changing at a speed he couldn't control, and he needed to get away from people and Damon's taunt before he too took a tumble right over the edge.

But alas the road to freedom was blocked by a chin-stained Damon. "Leaving without saying goodbye?"

"Move, Damon."

"Like that's gonna happen."

Stefan flew to his brother, jacked him by the lapels of his jacket, and slammed him into the wall. Pieces of brick crumbled to the ground.

Damon grinned and smeared his bloodied fingers right underneath Stefan's nose, giving him a mustache of sorts.

The quiver was instant and for one insane moment Stefan wanted blood so bad he had been near tempted to suck Damon's fingers clean. That was a sobering thought. _Very _sobering.

"What are you holding on to, Stefan? Restraint? What has that gotten you but the shit end of the stick?"

"No, thanks to you."

"Touché," Damon raised a brow. "Being fiends is who we _are_. Beautiful monsters with no hope of redemption. Accept your fate, brother and stop torturing yourself with the confines of humanity. We are not human. The rules are...there are no rules."

Stefan thrust himself away from Damon, snarling. "Sprouting Katherine Pierce ideology at me? I thought you'd try to be more original."

"Everything is a copy of something, Stefan. So what are you a reflection of?"

"I'm a reflection of you! A bastard who wants to be good but fucks things up in the process. I turned you into this because I was the perfect fucking son, you hated me for it, but I didn't want to live without my brother."

Damon snickered. "Aww, you can do better than that, Steffy. I've gotten over your pathetic attempts to be our bigoted father's favorite. And sure Katherine and Elena may have loved you first and best, but I fucked them both…eventually. But none of that matters. When will you get that through your skull?"

Stefan's ringing phone interrupted. He dug it out of his pocket, answered, staring Damon right in the eye, "Hey, Bonnie."

The elder showed no reaction to hearing that name or the contralto timber of her voice.

"Yeah, I found Damon. I'm standing right in front of him."

"_Tell him to meet me at the boardinghouse."_

"What?"

"No need to repeat," Damon tapped his ear. "I heard that."

"Bonnie…Damon, WAIT!"

Walking backwards, Damon blended superbly with the darkness. He was gone.

Phone still poised to his ear, Stefan said, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"_Yep."_

"He's on his way."

Hanging up, Stefan cocked a smile. Damon wouldn't know what hit him if things went according to plan.

* * *

Was there a more determined person who begged for death than Bonnie Bennett? Damon wasn't sure, but even he could appreciate the platter on which she placed herself. A feast required he at least clean the blood of his prior donors from his mouth and fingers, but he was…something niggled in the back of his mind.

He strolled into his home. A dark eyebrow arched at the tableau in front of him. Now if this wasn't terribly cute and clichéd. Muted light. Candles. A fire roaring. No music though. This did and did not have her signature on it. Before he moved any farther inside the house, he listened. This group liked springing traps.

To Damon's satisfaction he detected nothing save her pulse. That didn't make him trust her, either.

In any case, Damon stepped down into the living room, twirling his keys that he tossed on the sofa. "Should I be mad you didn't go through any of this trouble to seduce me back in 1994?"

"You think I'm here to seduce you?"

Tilting his head to the side Bonnie wasn't attired in lingerie that encouraged one to rip it off of her. She wore jeans and a shirt, granted both fit her svelte figure like a glove. A part of him lamented the fact she no longer walked around braless in lacy tops. He should have taken more advantage of blatantly staring at her breasts. Her hair was pushed back from her face that was perfectly heart-shaped. Those eyes which usually shot daggers at him or anything that got in her way, were subdued, practically heavy-lidded.

Damon bit into his bottom lip, "Well, I haven't forgotten what you said to me a few days ago when you barged in my room."

Bonnie shook her head. "I'm not here to rehash that or to talk about feelings."

Damon was in front of her in instant, "So you're here to pick up where things were rudely interrupted by my brother?"

Blindly she reached behind her for a glass of bourbon, offered it to Damon. "Don't worry. It's not spiked with vervain," Bonnie reassured.

"I'd be able to smell it…being this close to you," he took the glass but didn't sip its contents.

"To answer your question, I'm here because I want to channel. You."

The pale vampire let his gaze roam Bonnie from top to bottom as if she were fractured pieces of a van Gogh painting. "Channel?" he asked blandly. "You expect me to believe that bullshit?"

"Believe what you want, Damon. I don't have an ulterior motive."

He scoffed.

"Are you up for it?"

Damon leered then. "I don't think you want what I'm up for. Then again…it _has_ been a while for you, hasn't it?"

"You're not good enough to fuck me," Bonnie brazened. She plucked one of his insecurities.

Veins beneath Damon's eyes throbbed and cooled. He snorted. "You'll excuse me if I find _you_," and he gave her an unimpressed once-over, "to be incompetent at best, weak as hell at the least."

Her chest expanded on a deep breath at the insult. "Well, I see I'm not getting anywhere with you tonight. I should have asked Stefan," and Bonnie said that deliberately under her breath knowing the younger Salvatore was one of the biggest triggers for Damon.

Though he made not a move or even a sarcastic retort, Bonnie felt something within Damon shift, draw up like a dog spoiling for a fight.

"You'd channel Stefan?" _You'd let him touch you?_

"It's been a minute since I've channeled a vampire. The last time was when I had you, Klaus, and Stefan drink my blood to do the desiccation spell. That rush," Bonnie closed her eyes, arched her back a little as if she was in the moment, experiencing that rush of magic and power once again. Slowly her eyes opened and they were hazy, "It's been a long time since I've felt that good."

And she said she wasn't here to seduce him. Damon was suddenly very thirsty.

However, he invented this game. He wasn't going to fall for it. "Have you forgotten what I came to your room last night to do? You think that's off my agenda now?"

"What is on your agenda exactly?"

Damon tossed back the bourbon and chucked the glass into the fireplace. The percussion of it splitting to pieces against brick was like a million little bells ringing. When he pulled his lips back from his teeth there was just the small hint of fang. He stepped closer. Close enough the odor of copper, metal, and bourbon, Bonnie could smell on his breath. But she never took a step back, remained rooted to the spot, her warmth encompassing the last vestiges of space between them.

He snatched her wrists faster than she was prepared for. Bonnie gasped, relaxed though she vibrated as her magic flared, ready to be released. Damon pressed her closed fists against his hard chest.

"I don't have any agenda, _witch_. Having one would imply premeditation, and premeditation means you're thinking, and if you're thinking it means an emotion of some sort is guiding you. Nothing is guiding me besides primitive impulses."

"Which are?" Bonnie winced as Damon increased the pressure on the delicate bones of her wrists.

Smirking, Damon said, "Hunger, desire, the need to defend myself."

"You're feeling, that's good. But you feel that need now? To defend yourself?"

Damon slid her hands down his chest while pulling Bonnie closer, so close when he looked down his chin brushed her forehead. "One good shove and I could throw you into the wall, collapse your lung. I pull just right, I can take your arms off, or," he whispered in her ear, "I could drain you the fuck dry."

"Hmm, since you're so willing to share what you'd do to defend yourself, guess it's only fair I show you."

Damon had no time to question anything.

An indecipherable noise wafted through his mouth as something wrapped around his neck and yanked him backwards. It contrasted with the singeing pain spreading from the center of his palms to his fingers making him release Bonnie. She burned him. Damon was on his hands and knees grabbing at nothing but air around his neck as it was crushed from the inside. Murder flashed in his orbs even as he struggled in a fight he couldn't win until Bonnie was good and ready to call it quits.

"Me channeling you, Damon could have been enjoyable," Bonnie sighed. "Now I see I'm gonna have to do this the hard way."

Splaying her hand open, Bonnie flipped Damon on his back. She stood above him, a foot planted on each side of his narrow hips. "While I take energy from you, you might end up reliving some of your most terrible moments. I don't want to do that to you, Damon. You're my friend, and as a general rule, friends don't hurt each other. But," Bonnie deadpanned, and the candles blew out, the fire dimmed until it was nearly pitch-black in the living room, "you tried to kill me last night, just insulted me as a person, and after the year…_years_ I've had, I'm not letting that shit slide."

Damon's eyes widened as it seemed the darkness began to swallow Bonnie leaving nothing visible but her eyes. Eyes diminished to a thin circle of green. That darkness thus latched on to him. He tried to resist, fight, but was essentially powerless. At _her_ mercy. The vise around Damon's throat slackened, and he could talk though talking was hard considering he hadn't made up his mind if he should start screaming. Screaming would imply he was afraid, and he wasn't. He _wasn't_. He just hated not being in gotdamn control!

Whatever Bonnie was doing it was an invasion. Damon felt her rooting around inside of him, sifting as if he were dirt containing gold. The minute she entered his mind, he grit his teeth and threw up barriers but they were simply too weak. Humanity made it possible to hide things, but without it, it meant your secrets were laid bare, ready to be picked over. She wasn't being malicious, but curious, digging her metaphysical fingers into him as far as they could go.

Extraction.

Bonnie was pulling on that chord, that thin piece of blubber that held him together. Kept his soul alive in a body that was dead. And as she pulled she placed something into him, but Damon could hardly feel what it was. Euphoria, acceptance? No. It was neither of those things. But something insidious. Deadly and poisonous to a vampire.

Hope.

Ugh.

The faces, the kills, the blood, the sex all of it came roaring to the forefront of his mind but he batted them away. Not every single memory as there were too many, but enough that it didn't make his switch flutter. Not one little bit.

Damon realized at some point he could move and he was up and knocking Bonnie off her feet. She yelped.

He was on top of her, hand wrapped around her throat. They were still connected, Damon knew that, could feel it, feel her. Bonnie felt….it was distracting. But he _hated_ it. Hated _her_.

No. Hate was an emotion. Damon voided that.

"Killing you, you little bitch would make me feel better though that wouldn't hurt for too long," he paused. "But I know what will."

"Damon," Bonnie croaked.

He loosened his grip on her neck, flashed a brilliant smile and bounced to his feet.

Bonnie thought about tightening her magic around Damon, but catching that glint in his eye, she drew it back, recalled it. Coughed. She had been so close to finding his switch and manually turning it on.

As he edged to the door, Bonnie peeled herself off the floor. "Whatever you're playing to do, don't."

"You think you're in love with me? Well let's see if you'll become just another Elena in forgiving me for my fuck ups. I wonder what your friend Koffi is doing."

"DAMON!"

He was already gone.

**A/N: So what did we think of this chapter? It's time I've made that appeal again, about reviewing. I'm sure not a lot are feeling enthused about reading fanfic these days. However, if you haven't completely given up, please let me know. I've finished three major stories this year, and what helped pushed me to the finish line was hearing you guys' feedback. I'd like to finish more, so if you could just drop something that would be heavenly. Thank you. **


	5. Flight or Fight

**A/N: Thank you everyone who reviewed. You, kittens are the best.**

* * *

Bonnie paced wildly as she called Koffi to warn her, but her calls went unanswered. "Gotdammit, Koffi answer your fucking phone!" she exclaimed, hung up and called Stefan while searching high and low for a map. She didn't need blood or something belonging to a person to find them. Learning Expression hadn't been a total waste or ill-fated. Bonnie had discovered some work arounds traditional spirit magic. Candlewax would work just as perfectly, and with the crystal clear image of Koffi in her mind, it should be easy to pinpoint her location.

"Hey," came Stefan's voice once their lines connected, "how did it go? Are you all right?"

"NO!" Bonnie shrieked, found the map and rolled it out on the table. "I was close to flipping his switch but I lost my concentration for a second…" she swallowed at remembering what she had seen in Damon. So much thirst and hunger, lord the _hunger_!…Bonnie shook her head to get back on track. "He's going after my friend Koffi, Stefan. I can't let him hurt her…" she stopped as another idea sprung to mind.

"Bonnie…?"

"I'm going to send you a picture of Koffi. She lives on the fourth floor of my dorm. She might be at the library or the student center, but she'll probably be at the latter in the game room. Wait, no what day is it? Check the library, first. Find her, Stefan."

He swore an oath but said he'd get on it.

Bonnie hung up, forwarded a pic of Koffi to Stefan, and focused on the map but really was picturing Damon and the route he had taken, on foot, to Whitmore. She closed her eyes and thought about what it had been like tunneling in the metaphysical aspect of him. It had been like sinking her fingers into a gelid sludge, rooting through that trying to find his core. The essence of Damon that hadn't been too badly damaged. But that's what she had touched, the damaged parts of him. Alive and active casting off their own energy.

Something else had occurred. A transaction of sorts. She had poured a sliver of herself into Damon. Again, it had been accidental. If she had more control and experience she wouldn't have left a calling card behind, so to speak, and the force that kept him complacent would have remained intact. Nevertheless, Bonnie figured she could possibly use that as a tracking device. And if she concentrated hard enough might even be able to snap Damon's neck at this distance. However, what would be the risk to her?

Throwing herself over the edge and hoping for the best was a practice she cancelled.

Thankfully there was something else Bonnie could try.

She summoned Damon.

* * *

The tiny vessels in her brain had expanded and were pushing against the gray matter. Koffi Courtenay rubbed the spot behind her ear to no avail. The headache wouldn't go away until she chased it with pharmaceuticals. She abandoned the pretense of studying, packed her things, said goodbye to her fellow sorors, and left the library.

Koffi hummed a little to herself as she crossed the parking lot to her car. She checked her phone and saw that Bonnie had called, but she'd wait to call her back once she was in her room. Five feet away from her vehicle, she unlocked the door with the key fob, and heard footsteps behind her.

Without looking back, Koffi walked a little faster and reached for her door handle at the same time a man rounded the trunk of her car.

Koffi squelched the urge to scream, but her arm thrust out and she smacked the person in the chest.

"Ouch, _damn_ girl."

"What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like you want to get stabbed?" Koffi jerked the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder while glowering at her unwanted visitor.

He was tall the way she liked, dark skinned as she preferred, a good dresser, even better kisser, but he played games and she was done with the immature bullshit. Koffi eyed her ex Carmelo Smalls with the same assessing gaze her grandmother would bestow on her to gauge if she were lying. He stood with his hands in his pockets, smile bright in the dimly lit parking lot, yet it was clear he was hoping to charm his way between her defenses.

Headache momentarily forgotten, Koffi leaned against her vehicle, crossed her arms.

"I saw you and wanted to say what's up," Carmelo adjusted his weight on his feet. "How you been?"

Not thinking about you, Koffi nearly said. "I've been alright. How's your grandmother? I know she…I heard she had heart surgery."

Carmelo bobbed his attractive head. Koffi nearly kicked herself because she almost outed she had been trolling his Facebook page and saw his post where he honored his grandmother citing how strong she was, and the things they were going to do once she was out of the hospital because she couldn't leave the world yet.

"Still as feisty and mean as ever," he chuckled. "She pulled through with flying colors, and besides complaining about the foods she can no longer eat, she's been good. She asked about you the other day."

Pleasure buzzed through Koffi but she merely nodded.

And that was how Stefan found her. He didn't budge as he watched Koffi and Carmelo chat for another fifteen minutes before she hopped in her car and drove off. He followed at a discreet pace and wondered if he should intercept her at the door to her residential building.

That idea was nixed as he saw Koffi park and then climbed into the dark, late model sedan that parked behind hers. Stefan figured she was safe for the time being. He had caught a glimpse of the driver. It had been the guy he saw her talking to at the library.

One crisis aborted. How many left to go?

* * *

Bonnie could feel herself moving or more accurately Damon running. She couldn't feel the wind on her face or see exactly where he was, but the sensation of hurtling through time and matter made her grip the table for balance. Her nails dug into the waxy and polished surface as if applying brakes.

"STOP!"

There was a gasp and jerk both of which didn't come from her. She had his attention.

"Turn around and come back."

There was resistance, of course. Damon was still moving, but slower now however not running at a precise human speed.

"I _said _bring your ass back here. Obey."

The resistance this time was a growl and a yank that nearly pulled her across the table. If anyone were to come across her they'd see her bent over it. She breathed heavily. Don't overdo it, don't overdo it, Bonnie reminded herself. Qetsiyah's magic thrived in her but it was not her magic and it could turn against her. She had to coax it to let her enforce her will and not stop her heart in the process. Merge with the earth, Bonnie thought. She dug her heels in, anchoring her surrogate magic into the earth, tapping into it. There was a demand, recognition, then finally, a sigh as the schism unlocked giving her an offering. The energy that came forth helped her to right herself, stand straight. She stared at the door. Began the summoning spell once again backed by a power Damon wouldn't be able to fight or ignore.

obey.

come.

Obey.

Come.

OBEY!

COME!

An enraged Damon Salvatore careened through the front door surprisingly without breaking it. The look on his face was not pretty.

His shadow stretched across the floor reaching the opposite side of the table Bonnie stood behind. He came to a halt at the edge of the foyer. If she wasn't sure of her ability to stop him, she'd be terrified because the flinty look in Damon's eyes equated her blood and guts painting the walls once he was done with her.

The air crackled with an immeasurable amount of tension. It was palpable enough to destroy any paltry attempt to suppress the demon in Damon that had come out to play. His anger was a tsunami wave ripping through mortar and concrete as if they were nothing more substantial than straw and mud.

Bonnie blinked owlishly. "Seal."

The front door slammed shut.

* * *

"What. The. Hell. Have. You. Done?" Damon wanted answers.

Bonnie began tidying up the table seemingly unconcerned by the viper she provoked. "You're not getting out of this house until I'm ready to let you out."

"I don't mean _that_."

"Oh, you mean how did I make you come running back to the boardinghouse? I summoned you."

"I don't know much about magic, but I do know for a summoning spell you would have needed my blood or hair. You have neither. So how'd you do it?"

Bonnie debated whether she should be truthful and let Damon know that a tiny piece of her essence was writhing around in him. She decided against it. For now.

"It doesn't matter so much as the fact it worked. I got you here and here is where you'll stay."

Damon chuckled and slapped his knee, "Classic Bonnie. Why do I never see your moves coming?"

"You don't see a lot of things, Damon that are right in front of you. That's not my problem though."

"So your master plan," he air quoted, "is to keep me trapped here until I turn it on. Babe, have you forgotten the four months I was in hell with you? You think this is going to faze me?"

"Well, I guess you can say I figured out a way to show you what being alone feels like. I can come and go as I like, as will anyone else who decides to come into this house. _You_ are the only one who won't be going anywhere."

That revelation changed things. Damon checked to see if she were bluffing. He tried the front door, couldn't open it. Tried the windows with the same result—nothing.

Cold fury was the best way to describe the expression Damon was projecting. "You know it's unwise to infuriate someone who could give a fuck if you live or die, right?"

"You without your humanity means its Thursday instead of Friday. You may apply a filter thirty percent of the time you talk, and control some of your finer impulses, but really it's just another day of the week. And besides, you could use some you time."

"Clever little witch." Damon sat down in his favorite armchair, crossed his legs. He muttered loud enough for her to hear. "Isolation seems to be the only way you can get a man."

"Foraging for your brother's leftovers is how you get women. Your point?" Damon's face was a purposely blank canvas, yet underneath was a flicker of pique. Bonnie sighed, "Are we going to sit here and do this pointless back and forth? It's not going to accomplish anything nor will it change the fact you're stuck until I'm ready to let you go."

"And I hope that'll be soon and over the phone. That's how you like to end things, isn't it? A Dear John phone call? Couldn't even leave the comfort of your handwriting behind. Ouch. But then little Gilbert would actually need to know how to read above a second grade level."

Bonnie sat across from him, staring intently. Damon returned her scrutiny—drolly. The amount of ammo she had, the immeasurable depth of declarations…None of it would be enough to get through to Damon. His convictions had never been the standard, had gone against the grain, and on those rare occasions he let his mistakes haunt him, Damon never had to live long with the consequences. He was the poster child of selfishness, and getting off easy. Though to hear him tell it he had it the worst out of everyone.

She would not coddle him or be sweet to him. "Go take a shower. You smell like shit."

* * *

One was never safe when left alone with an inhuman thing. Damon figured she should have learned that lesson by now.

Iron, sweat, dead skin cells, and other particles flushed down the drain in his shower. He scrubbed himself twice before shutting off the taps. Damon threaded his fingers through his hair, rubbed his face, stepped out of the shower. He liked being clean as much as he liked playing dirty. In five steps he stood in front of the double sink, roamed his physique pleased with what he saw.

Damon had taken off his ring with the intent to clean it with Stefan's toothbrush. Reaching for it, he was hit with a sense of déjà vu. He had taken off his ring to wash his hands on one particular night. Not because they had been stained with physical blood but figurative bl—motherfuck it. None of it mattered. Not the reason behind his Lady Macbeth scrubbing of his hands. Not his inability to face his own reflection.

Tonight he had no such qualms. He wasn't going to remain locked away like some hunchback. Fuck that. He was getting out.

* * *

The light of the moon caught her asymmetrical features at the right angle, highlighting the supple fullness of her cheek, the tip of her nose, the arch of her brow, and the curve of her jaw. With one ear on the conversation she was having over the phone, and the other listening for any movement from a vampire, Bonnie had yet to fully relax. However, one of her concerns had been abated. Koffi was safe.

"I know I said I was done with his dumbass, but he's just…_girl_ he's fine."

"How many times have you fallen for his, 'I'm a changed man' speech just for things to fall right back into the same pattern?" Bonnie countered. "He'll lavish you with attention until he get what he wants, and then he'll be back to pretending he's too busy to spend five minutes with you."

"I know," Koffi whined, "but listen…"

"No, you told me to have standards and not to compromise so I'm telling you the same thing. Just because you know someone doesn't mean they're right for you."

Bonnie could imagine Koffi flopping around petulantly which made her smile. Her life in 1994 had been exponentially reduced where the craving for moments like this made her ache so terribly. Now hearing a voice on the other end of the phone, feeling needed, it was the brand of medicine Bonnie had yet to build a tolerance to. And she didn't want to. She never wanted to take this for granted. Though, it did feel odd and ironic giving relationship advice when her personal life was barren.

"Since you want to be knee deep in my business," Koffi huffed, "where are you? In your room?"

"I'm not on campus. I'm…at a friend's house."

"A friend's house? Don't tell me you're with him. Do we need to have the talk again?"

Defenses rising, Bonnie gripped her cellphone tighter, "No, we don't need to have the talk again. It's not like that."

"Bonnie," Koffi's chiding tone made the young woman in question kick a small rock off the porch.

"It's not."

"Un-hun, I guess we all have our Carmelo's."

"Yeah," Bonnie muttered drily. The difference being Koffi and Carmelo actually had a relationship until things went south, wants and desires changed, and Koffi was left to pick up the pieces of her heart. Bonnie's situation with Damon was…it was nothing but unrequited torture. She wished she could tell Koffi the full truth, and not just about Damon but about herself, the supernatural, but Bonnie was tired of losing people.

"Oh, he's back. I'll give you a call tomorrow."

"All right. Be safe, Koffi."

"You, too. Bye, chica."

"Bye, crazy girl."

Bonnie hung up and slumped against the brick façade, feeling drained. The effects of the summoning spell were mostly gone. Mostly. There were flashes where Bonnie had to stop moving and hold on to whatever was nearby as a flood of distinct sensations coasted through her. They weren't necessarily emotions, but perhaps projections of intent. What she was sensing now wasn't terribly difficult to put a finger on.

Damon was up to something.

Bonnie crept upstairs to check on her inmate. The paintings lining the walls of the second floor never seemed ominous to her until now. As if those depicted on canvas were watching her head straight for her doom. Damon's room was completely dark. Another first. It was always lit even when he wasn't around. Bonnie remained in the hallway straining to hear the slightest noise.

"Damon?"

No answer.

Bonnie tried the library, the other bedrooms, the small den no one ever used. Empty. She went to the stairwell of the basement. The electric hum of the lone bulb above her head waned in octave humming loudly then softly to loud again. The light only extended so far that the last three steps were blanketed in total darkness. There was another switch at the bottom that illuminated the rest of the basement that was cluttered with junk from past Salvatore's and actual guests of the boardinghouse who left things behind. She tried not to think about the people who've died in this house, the bodies Stefan and Damon may have stashed down here until they could be moved, buried. Goose bumps encroached one section of skin at a time the longer she lingered. Bonnie had no intention of going down there with a humanity-free vamp on the loose.

She went back to his room.

The door was ajar just as it had been the first time she checked. A draft of cold air wafted unseen from the master bedroom, tickling her ankles, legs. Her breathing was too loud and Bonnie did her best to temper it. How many nights had she spent in this oversized house? This shouldn't affect her, but with Damon's dark room appearing endless and he nowhere to be found, it played tricks on her that for a minute Bonnie forgot which timeline she was living in.

Her feet crossed the threshold and she reached for the light switch to her right, but a cold hand clamped around her wrist and ruthlessly pulled her inside. Her screams echoed. Bonnie lost her footing and went spiraling to the floor; her hip, elbow, and ribs taking the brunt of the fall. White light burst behind her lids that closed instantly to brace for impact with the unforgiving hardwood floor.

Before she could orient herself, her mouth was covered with duct tape and she was flipped on her stomach, arms twisted behind her back, ligaments and cartilage pulling painfully. Coarse rope that chafed and cut her skin was wrapped around her wrists. Bonnie kicked her legs though it was useless. She was pinned. Fury was her narcotic and she let it saturate her bloodstream…

…Stefan who craved a shower, a gallon of blood, and maybe a blowjob (that would be nice) casually entered his family home…to see his brother soaring from the second floor to the first and crash landing on the coffee table, demolishing it to bits. He hurried inside ignoring Damon's grunts and curses.

"BONNIE!"

"Sure, don't ask if I'm fine, brother," Damon rolled on his back, cupping his shattered elbow.

Stefan met Bonnie who was halfway down the steps, "What happened?"

"_Move_, Stefan."

He didn't acquiesce, caught Bonnie by the shoulders, said, "What did he do to you?"

"He bound and gagged me," Bonnie shook off the twine of rope, wincing marginally.

Stefan spun around and stomped to the living room to pick a fight. By the time he got there, Damon was on his feet, extending and retracting his arm.

"Before you throw that punch in honor of a girl you barely give two shits about, I had my reasons."

"There are no reasons for you being a world-class asshole and that's on your good days."

Damon rolled his eyes which narrowed in the next second when the witch stood too close to his brother. "Hey, she's got me trapped here, and since she didn't use a celestial event to seal this place off, I figured the best way to get out was for her to die. _Excuse_ me for being practical."

Bonnie lurched forward, but Stefan caught her by the arm easing her back.

"He wants a reaction out of you, Bonnie."

"No, what he wants me to do is kill his ass."

Damon smirked.

Repulsed and shaken by the turn the night had taken, Bonnie retreated to the kitchen to collect her things. She had been prepared to do whatever was necessary to reach Damon, but she didn't sign up to be repeatedly assaulted. The line in the sand had been crossed, violated, and she wasn't going to continue to make it easy for Damon to hurt her. She wouldn't subject herself to his abuse. Fuck him. He was trapped in the house limiting his ability to kill indiscriminately. That would have to be good enough for now.

She had just slipped into her coat when Stefan joined her. He could tell she wasn't just upset but humiliated. And as much as he could lay the entire blame at Damon's feet, his brother hadn't been wrong in something he said. Stefan knew he hadn't been any kind of friend to Bonnie in years. Yet once again he was relying on her to help him save his brother and everyone by extension.

Wordlessly, he approached her, a crease between his thick eyebrows, frown tugging the corners of his lips. "Bonnie…"

"No, I don't want to hear any excuses," she snapped and wrapped her scarf around her neck, avoiding eye contact.

"No, I wasn't…there are things…things I need to tell you and they don't have anything to do with Damon." That caught Bonnie's attention. Stefan mustered on, "I'm sorry for not being the kind of friend to you that I've been for Caroline and Elena."

Bonnie stared at Stefan because that's all she could do. Stare. And wonder where this was coming from and why now. "Don't apologize to me because of what Damon said."

Stefan resisted pinching the bridge of his nose. "As blunt as it was…you and I both know it's the truth. Everything you've done and I haven't thanked you for it. You've saved my brother, me, on more than one occasion and I never even took the time to say thank you. The times I knew you were in pain and I ignored it because…" Stefan lifted his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know why. It wasn't right and I'm so sorry."

Nonplussed, Bonnie's mouth opened and closed.

"That being said I can't ask you to further subject yourself to Damon while he's like this."

"But you said that I was—"

"—I know. It isn't right especially considering everything you've been through. You've barely been home a month, and I can't ask you to help me clean up this mess. Damon, he's old enough, he can beat this on his own."

"He…he shouldn't have to."

Stefan agreed but if he could, he wanted to keep Bonnie out of it. "He's stuck here?" Bonnie nodded. "At least we'll know where he is at all times."

Bonnie pondered and sighed. Fighting against her old instinct to jump into the fray with no thought to how she'd be affected. She loved Damon. Could she really turn her back on him and let him fester without his humanity for months, years if it took that long?

Think of the devil and he'll appear. Damon leaned against the doorjamb.

Bonnie spoke to Stefan though her eyes remained on public enemy number one. "I need to say something to him before I go."

Pensive, Stefan volleyed between his brother and Bonnie. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Stefan, I'm not afraid to do what's necessary to make your brother's head my footstool."

Stefan's eyebrows kissed his hairline. He bowed out but would be on standby in case Damon tried anything. He vacated the kitchen yet the warning was clear in his gaze when he passed Damon.

The 1994 best buds held one another captive as the silence stretched and precious time ticked off the clock.

"Expecting an apology, little witch?"

"You half-ass apologize as it is. I know better than to expect that from you, at least now."

Damon sauntered forward, crossing over the tile headed straight for the defiant witch.

"Modus." His ring flew off his hand and smacked into Bonnie's palm. Damon stopped. "I am a descendant of Emily who spelled this ring, which means in a roundabout way I can take the daylight spell off of this."

The vampire's chest rose and fell at a slightly faster pace. She really meant to have him trapped here like a fucking sardine.

"I'm not so far gone not to realize that I did something…unconscionable," Damon began as contritely as he could make himself appear. "Do you really think it's necessary to have me cowering in patches of shade in my own fucking house?"

"I guess you better keep the curtains closed then. I'm keeping this for additional insurance," she tucked the ring in her coat pocket.

"Bonnie," his voice became silkily sweet, the kind of timbre one employed simply for manipulation. "You're making my leash unbearably tight," like his smile. "It's my punishment, I can get that but…You should take advantage while I'm like this."

"What?"

"You have a chance with this version of me, Bonnie. Don't tell me it hasn't crossed your mind. Because, let's be real, we know what's going to happen _if_ I ever find the energy to flip my switch. The winner when it's all said and done won't be you and it definitely won't be me. It'll be _Elena_. I'll be grateful to you, crack a few jokes, we'll share a pained look of longing right before I turn my back on you to rush into Elena's arms. It's what you're counting on, right? What you're thinking will happen. You won't be selfish. You'll let me go; let me throw my love for another woman in your face, day after day, week after week, and you'll do it with a smile. Tell yourself it's how things should be. That you want me to be happy even if I'm not being happy with you. Since that's the meaning of true love, isn't it?"

Bonnie could hate him if he was being patronizing. He wasn't.

"You'll always regret and you'll always wonder what could have been if you had just…been a bit more like me. Go after what you want to hell with whoever gets in your way. But you'll feed off the scraps of friendship because at least then you'll be getting a piece of me, and a piece of me is better than nothing. Right?"

Cocking her hip, astonished, Bonnie wagged her head, "_Wow_. You think I'm that desperate to settle for this," she waved a hand up and down encompassing his person.

Well, you did date Jeremy. Damon literally had to bite his tongue not to say.

"What makes you think you're my end all be all? Or that I'd sit and pine away after you until I'm old and gray, holding out hope that one day you'll love me in return? Pre-prison world Bonnie may have done that. Post-prison world Bonnie…the sidelines aren't good enough anymore. And you are definitely warming the bench."

A naughty grin streaked across Damon's façade. "Atta girl."

While Bonnie was so busy being offended by a prospect he knew had to have crossed her mind at least once, he took her hand, extended Bonnie's forefinger, brought it to his lips, kissed it. Caught off guard, air whistled lightly between her parted lips and she swallowed a hiss when Damon slipped her finger into his mouth and sucked.

"Just try me on for size…just once," he mouthed around her finger before sinking the entire digit in his mouth.

That's how Elena found them.

**A/N: Thank you for reading. I meant to say this story won't be terribly long since I'm covering S6 shenanigans in two other stories. I don't know how many chapters are left, but this will be a short and sweet one, by my standard's anyways. But again, thank you for reading. Please, please let me know what you think. I crave you guys' feedback. Happy Birthday Ian. **


	6. Everyone Wants a Taste

"What the hell is going on?!"

"Foreplay," Damon deadpanned.

Elena's shrill question made Bonnie jump who immediately tried to yank her finger free with no such luck.

When faced with improbable scenarios the first reaction was denial. What she walked in on had to be a figment of her imagination. No, her boyfriend and best friend hadn't been standing intimately close together _with_ Bonnie's finger inexplicably in Damon's _mouth!_ Elena couldn't have stumbled upon that interlude. Yet she had and if she hadn't how far would things have gone?

Elena glowered, "_This_ is how you think you would be able to reach Damon? By coming on to him?"

"What?" Bonnie sputtered. "You think I'm coming on to him? Does this look like I'm coming on to him?"

"Use your brain, Elena," Damon stated laconically. "If an ant bit me I'd think it was coming on to me. Bonnie," he laughed, "_please_."

The woman in question glared.

"Although," he swung his head toward Elena, grinned, "she was _in_ me. Earlier. It wasn't a rim job in case you're wondering."

Bonnie was completely lost as to Damon's meaning, but she knew whatever he was referring to didn't sound innocent. She smacked his arm out of principle. Elena sucked her teeth in disgust.

"Well," Damon began affably. "I know where this is going so why don't I leave you two to do what you do best. Talk around each other and not say what the fuck you actually mean."

"Wait," that was Bonnie trailing after Damon as he sauntered to the exit.

"Bonnie, we need to talk," Elena fell in line.

"Not now," Bonnie tossed over her shoulder.

Damon bolted out of the kitchen with the world's two most annoying women following on his heels. One bloated with self-righteousness the other with self-absorption. He super sped to his room. Predictably Elena was right behind him closing the door after her entry.

"Why was Bonnie's finger in your mouth?" Elena poked Damon on the shoulder.

He didn't respond, merely swaggered to a large globe that doubled as a drink cart.

Noise pollution in the form of Elena's preaching was drowned by the mellifluous trickle of expensive, imported whiskey filling up a rock glass. Damon spilled a dribble on his thumb that he licked off and hummed a little melody. He corked the bottled and glanced at the doppelganger who was still talking.

"…stay away from Bonnie."

That caught his ear.

"Oh, you want me to stay away from the person who's imprisoned me in my home?"

Elena blinked in confusion and began another round of asking self-explanatory questions.

Damon took up residence on his bed, stretching diagonally, crossing his feet at the ankle. "Why do I get the sense your anger isn't coming from a place that's worried about your friend's safety?" he interrupted her.

"Damon…If you ever let your humanity back in…and you…you cross a line with Bonnie…I'm not going to forgive you for it."

Dark eyebrows kissed his hairline. Damon chuckled and stuffed a pillow behind his back, sipped his drink. "Interesting how you didn't show this much concern for your bestie when she was trapped alone for _months._ If I didn't keep reminding you, you would have forgotten all about her since you only seemed concerned with shoving your tongue down my throat…"

"Don't act like that wasn't a two way street! You were there just as much as I was, and got just as distracted. I know I'm not perfect, Damon and neither are you. Being Bonnie's friend for four months doesn't make you better than me."

"Well, I guess you have me there. Just remember who it was she wanted to see first when she came back. It wasn't you."

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Elena reiterated, "Just stay away from her." She headed for the door.

"Elena."

She glanced at him.

"Many things about me might be different but this hasn't changed…Don't tell me what the fuck to do. Close the door on your way out."

She slammed it with enough force that had the walls been plaster instead of panel they would have cracked.

Drink finished, Damon folded his arms behind his head, listened. Murmuring voices. His little brother, the witch, the doppelganger. The latter left, this time taking care not to slam the door. Feet shuffled, small and dainty, they plopped in a disjointed cadence on the stairs headed…ah yes toward his bedroom.

Why hadn't he noticed this before? She smelled like his dinner, a citrusy, tangy spice like an open-mouth kiss.

"What happened tonight won't be happening again, Damon."

He shifted his head to the left. Bonnie stood with that determined jut of her chin. "We'll see. You think keeping me trapped here is going to change anything?"

"I don't know what it may do, but at least no one will have to worry about who you'll kill next."

Damon curled his lip. "If only you knew…little witch."

Bonnie's spine straightened at that implication.

"I've killed and I've gorged since I flipped, and Stefan watched but didn't stop me. The gorging part at least. Hell, he was five seconds from joining in," he stood behind Bonnie in flash, leaned into her space. "Think about that. Two brothers, one neck. I like drinking from the back like this," he brushed her hair aside, placed his mouth a centimeter or two away from her throat. "It leaves my hands free to touch, squeeze, fondle."

And like the demon he was he pantomimed what his hands liked to do when he fed. Squeezing her breasts but not really, slipping his hand between her thighs, but not really. This almost touch made Bonnie squirm though she fought not to let it show. But Damon felt her shudder, minute though it was.

"Stop it," Bonnie pushed his hand away and jerked her neck out of reach. She glared at him.

"Leaving me in Stefan's hands," Damon guffawed, "a ripper? A blood addicted pussy? You might as well drop the shield right this second. My brother and I, we bring out the worst in each other. But go ahead, leave me in his care. See what happens."

Bonnie was cognizant she was being goaded, that this was some form of reverse psychology. She could care less. "I'm willing to take my chances. If Stefan starts to show any signs of being a homicidal twit, I'll lock his ass up too. All of you should get a taste of what I went through in hell," that final bit Bonnie muttered lowly.

Damon heard anyways. He smirked. "You want to punish us, hurt us like we've hurt you," he stated more than asked.

It was easy to see the witch was primed for it—revenge. However, her morals stayed her hand. Hope was a dangerous thing, but she held on to it believing her friends weren't total assholes; believing she mattered as much to them as they did to her. She needn't bother clinging to her hope, Damon mused. It was going to uproot itself at some point. All she was doing was delaying the inevitable.

So of course he had to push. "Who would you hurt the most? You can tell me."

Bonnie sighed, "I don't have time for this," she took a step and Damon moved with her, blocking.

He advanced forward, "I bet you'd look mouth-watering like you did in the cave when you turned Silas into stone." He reached to trace the curve of her cheek. Bonnie batted his hand away.

"_Stop_," Bonnie ordered.

Damon paused in mid-step, scowled. His mouth on the other hand continued, "Who would you start with? Who would you end with? I know your resentment has got to be out there like a motherfucker. Don't lie," he rushed when Bonnie opened her mouth to respond. "You've thought about it. Want me to make a suggestion?"

"No."

"Because you already know what you'd do to each of us?"

"Like I said, I don't have time for this. Have fun in captivity."

Damon observed as Bonnie practically ran for the door. "That good girl façade won't last for much longer, sweetheart!"

She'll be back. The good ones always came back.

* * *

Exhausted and craving a shower, Bonnie entered her temporary lodgings. The graduate dorms offered a level of comfort that made her undergrad self feel like she was slumming. The amenities included a small sitting area, a forty-two inch HD flatscreen, fireplace, in-suite bathroom, and a full kitchen.

The single bed, a poster bed at that looked more than inviting and she couldn't wait to sink into its plushy depths, but she had to wash the stench of sweat and dust off of her first. Cleanse her pores of the garbage Damon spewed. Damon. She was tired of thinking about him.

"Turn your brain off, Bonnie." Yeah like that would be easy.

In her hectic forty-eight hours she hadn't really unpacked anything. Her belongings were still stored in suitcases and boxes. Thus she went on a partially distracted hunt for her personal care products and pajamas.

_The change in air density was the first she felt since being stuck here. After thirty-nine days of temperate weather, sunny skies until 12:15 when the eclipse struck, she had forgotten what a cloudy sky and rain looked like. Humidity was merely a word in the dictionary. This room retained heat, the stuffy kind. The kind that made her shuck her bra. She searched through boxes of junk looking for more tapes for the video camera._

_Suddenly fingers poked her on her ribs as she was bent over. She screamed and flew upright, the top of her head nearly crashing into Damon's chin. Bonnie spun around—livid._

_"Ticklish, BonBon?"_

_"You asshole!"_

Bonnie blinked out of her reverie, aggravated. Damn memory. She resumed rooting through her belongings, but she was right back in that third floor bedroom at the boardinghouse.

_"What are you doing up here?" Damon surveyed the piles of relics from Salvatore's dead and forgotten, nose slightly crinkled._

_"There aren't any more tapes for the recorder. I thought there might be some up here."_

_"We can hit up the store like we've been doing for the last month and some change. I know time is stuck on repeat, but that's no excuse to be slow."_

_"Shut up. If you're not going to help me look you can leave."_

_Damon, who had nothing better to do, stayed. And removed his shirt citing he didn't want to get it dirty._

_Bonnie tried to have no reaction to seeing his bare torso. Reattaching a finger would have been easier. It had been forty-one days since she saw a man naked; and just as long since feeling a man's touch. She found backs fascinating, but there was something about Damon's that was doubly so. If one looked beyond the invisible fingerprints and scratches left by who knew how many women, the ripple of muscles were like that of a horse in full run. His arms were just as lovely, muscular but not obscenely so. Lower her gaze traveled to his tapered waist. Did his hipbones jut out? Could she see the bands of muscles at the apex of his thighs? Detouring north, Bonnie wondered about the hair that just brushed the base of his neck._

_She snapped out of it and carried on her search for tapes._

In real time, Bonnie found her toothbrush, toothpaste, and facial wash, but not her pajamas. Frustrated and cranky, she was two seconds from saying fuck it, I'll sleep nude.

Bonnie chewed her lip. Why shouldn't she? She didn't have to worry about pesky roommates barging in on her, and she'd never done that before. Besides, wasn't college a time for experimenting? Though sleeping nude was child's play to some.

Shrugging, Bonnie disrobed, grabbed her towel and toiletry items. She was under the showerhead, washing her problems down the drain. Doubt lingered the longest clinging to her like debt.

Anger did not always trump desire. One could function without the other just as one could fuel the other. In nearly every myth there was a shred of truth to it. What Damon said tonight pissed Bonnie off, insulted her, but…and she hated to say this, he hadn't been completely out of left field.

If she persisted in trying to flip Damon's switch, once it was said and done, she would be hand delivering him back to Elena. Shiny and new and like nothing ever happened. Damon would be grateful to her and that's as far as things would go. It wouldn't make him love her any more than he did, if he loved her at all.

_It doesn't have to be that way_. Temptation answered her indecisive heart. _It isn't a matter of having a "chance" with Damon while he's like this, but a matter of _you_ acting on what you want. And you want him, don't you?_

_But that would be wrong._ Her virtue argued. _He's in love with someone else even if they aren't together for the time being. Don't tread on someone else's grass. Grow your own. _

"Every time I try it gets trampled and shitted on…what the hell am I saying?" Bonnie lathered, rinsed, and shut off the water.

Her hands were tied like always, yet there were plenty of other things she needed to worry about, like picking a damn major.

She shrieked when she came out of the bathroom. Elena sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair. Glowering while her pulse beat a million miles per second, Bonnie snatched off her shower cap. "What are you doing here? How'd you know this was my room?"

Elena tapped her nose. Right, Bonnie rolled her eyes.

"We need to talk," the doppelganger got to her feet.

"Like I said at the boardinghouse, I'm not in the mood for a lecture. Damon is trapped inside the house. He won't be getting out. Plus, I have his ring so if my spell for whatever reason tapers off, well, he'd be restricted to going out at night."

"You have his ring?"

One would have thought Damon proposed, or given her his class ring as a symbol of them going steady by the incredulity Elena was displaying. Bonnie saw this becoming an annoying pattern. And to think she had been so starved to talk to Katherine's descendant.

"Elena, whatever you have to say to me about what you saw in the kitchen…between the things you could have walked in on, it's not that big of a deal. It meant nothing."

A lie. It did mean something. To Elena. Her relationship with Damon felt so fragile that a whisper against it could destroy it. She wanted assurances that Bonnie didn't want Damon, didn't view him as anything more than a friend. Needed to know exactly what he meant to Bonnie because a niggling feeling called karma was growing, and Elena wanted it to stop.

But she had to be careful. Sneaky.

"Bonnie," she said softly. "You can understand why I'd be worried about you. We just got you back, and Damon is explosive and impulsive. I don't want him to hurt you. My strongest memory of the two of you together is when he almost killed you after Emily destroyed the crystal. He was so awful then. That's why…I think it would be best if you stayed away."

Green eyes narrowed marginally. "I'm not afraid to hurt Damon if it came down to it." Bonnie stood toe-to-toe with the doppelganger. "Thanks for the concern if that's what it really is. But…I have my ways of making Damon kneel and obey me."

Elena's nostrils flared and she realized she wasn't good at this. Playing someone against themselves, or rather it only seemed to work on gullible men when she fluttered her lashes. Against a Bennett witch who dealt with the world's—their world's caprice and derision she was no match.

"Goodnight, Elena."

The three year old vampire left. Bonnie took her time moisturizing her skin, brushed her teeth, and spelled her room shut. She climbed into bed without a stitch of clothing. Cotton kissed and draped on her form. Her warm flesh responded, nipples puckered and tented the sheets. Her clit throbbed. Bonnie cinched her thighs together.

Sleep evaded. When they went low she aimed high, but what if…what if she didn't?

* * *

Day three of being imprisoned in his home was the equivalent of driving splinters up his arm. He finally had a visitor. Enzo.

"Hello, mate."

"What do you want?"

"The body count has been suspiciously low around these parts. I thought for sure there'd be half a dozen or more bouncy coeds who met their unfortunate end with a pair of fangs."

Damon snorted, "Should I be flattered you've been covertly stalking me?"

Enzo squinted. He wouldn't classify it stalking so much as keeping an eye on his investment.

"I've been…" Damon waved a hand around, "indisposed."

"Then I guess you can call this a jail break."

"Yeaaaah, that won't be happening. You see, the witch has me trapped here and," he held up his ringless finger.

Chuckling, Enzo wagged his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Can always count on her for being a buzzkill. Well, since you can't come out to party, guess it's a good thing I took the initiative to bring the party to you. Come here, love," Enzo motioned to someone just out of Damon's range of view.

The first thing Damon noticed was her tits. They poured out of her white tank top. Two rounded spheres barely concealed in black lace. He ignored for the moment the shortness of her jean mini skirt, beige pigmentation, her dark shoulder-length hair, and whiskey colored orbs. She wasn't all long limbs, but petite and curvy, and if he tilted his head to the left, she could be a branch off a particular tree he's spent more than enough time climbing.

The woman entered his home with audaciousness, and not a fuck to give that would have had him hone in on her signature regardless of his state of mind.

"I'm Krystal."

"Spelled with a K," Enzo added.

Damon arched a brow and sauntered to his drink cart. He lifted a bottle in a silent question if she wanted any.

"Love some. Thanks."

The three settled on the couches once everyone had a drink in hand. Krystal and Enzo sat side by side with Damon on the opposing sofa. Krystal kicked off her boots, made herself more than comfortable as she watched Damon over the rim of her glass.

"How long have you two known each other?" she started the festivities.

"Long enough," Damon answered.

"Since the 50s though we lost touch for a while," Enzo provided.

"What about you two?" Damon placed the spotlight on his guests.

Krystal twisted her lips to the side as she looked at Enzo. "What's it been? Four or five…"

"Days."

"Seems longer."

"Enzo has that ability," Damon swallowed his chuckle with the rest of his bourbon.

He got the bird for that.

Rolling his tumbler between his hands, Enzo said, "Interesting story I heard on the news this morning."

"What?" Krystal tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Some bloke killed his girlfriend, took her dead body to the police, and confessed to icing her."

"And?" the she-vamp said flippantly.

Enzo kept his gaze on Damon searching for any kind of reaction. "His family doesn't believe he killed her. They weren't madly in love, but she had been around longer than some of his prior dalliances. When questioned on his motive, he said he had been angry with her, but couldn't say what made him so angry to end her life."

Damon's face was blank. A white wall in a newly constructed condo.

"As interesting," Krystal air quoted, "as the trivialities of human nature is, I'd much rather get better acquainted…with you, Damon."

He didn't care to share or learn where she came from, how long she'd been a vampire. Oh yeah, he peeped her lapis lazuli ring. The less he knew about her well, it didn't matter.

"My philosophy is," Damon began, "the quickest way to get to know someone is to sleep with them."

Krystal arched a brow, "Is that so?"

"You'll find I'm incredibly simple."

"I doubt that. I'm sure those who know you probably don't know you well at all."

Damon shrugged. Conversation lapsed for a second, but that was fine with Damon who sat and observed as Enzo and Krystal murmured to one another, the Brit's hand on her thigh. As he continued to look, he picked Krystal apart. Playing games, being coy and well-mannered was not her vocation, and she seemed the type who would laugh right in the face of a girl like Elena if she tried to preach about having a positive influence on someone. This woman sitting on his couch was spice and barbed wired—shiny but dangerous to touch, one thing they had in common.

Before he knew it, Krystal placed her empty glass on the table, pulled down her skirt, and kneeled in front of him.

"How I get to know someone is through and by dancing. Feel like it?"

"No," Damon stretched an arm along the back of the couch. "But I wouldn't mind watching you."

"I'm not a stripper."

"Didn't say you were."

Krystal used his knees for leverage to stand up. She swayed her hips knowing both men's gazes were glued to her perky ass. She had to say Damon was the hottest guy she'd seen in a few months give or take. If he were up for fucking that would be cool. If not, that was fine as well. The least he could do was eat her out, Krystal surmised as she reloaded her glass.

Her body grew stiff as a board when she felt Damon behind her. She knew it was him and not the other guy because the hair on the back of her neck didn't rise whenever Enzo was close. This cold, electric feeling could only be produced by the one with eyes the color of sapphires. She had been forewarned about Damon, but inhumanity didn't disturb her. The vampires she rolled with were batshit crazy anyways. What was one more?

Krystal faced him.

"What did you come here for?" Damon ogled her mouth.

"I know something about you, Damon Salvatore," she played with the neckline of his T-shirt. "You've been in love with teenage girls your entire life. Why not try a grown woman on for size and one you don't have to compel."

"I see Enzo's been running his mouth."

"You'll forgive him for that, won't you? I think there's a way we can take our two philosophies and merge them."

The offer was tempting, very tempting. Damon grabbed her wrist feeling its warmth and the pulse beating steadily beneath her skin.

Krystal reached for his hand and placed it right on her breast. "The way I see it, everyone wins," she looked at him like she'd paralyze him with her pussy if he gave the signal.

"I could hurt you."

"I'll heal."

Enzo came up behind Krystal, dropped a kiss on her cheek. "Well? Are we all about to have a good night?"

"I'm sure that can be arranged. Krystal?"

"I'm down."

So it was.

* * *

Mystic Falls was a postcard town. The downtown area was void of trash, graffiti, hell jay walkers! It reminded you of those movies set back in the 50's with wrought iron light posts, malt shops, and Victorian inspired brick buildings and facades. Mom and pop, family owned stores lined the main strip with large picture windows giving shoppers an unobstructed view of what lied inside ready to be swiped off a shelf and dumped into a plastic bag. People waved to each other, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to chat or trade gossip. Quaint, chic, boring.

Boring if one was only human.

It felt so surreal being back in her old stomping grounds. The changes were easy enough to spot but everything else remained untouched, sacred in its traditionally fundamentalist way.

Mystic Grill was remarkably still standing. Dipping inside she was welcomed to the familiar sedate lighting, stone fixtures, camel leather boots and dark wood chairs that were a pain to sit on for any stretch of time.

It was packed. The last basketball game of the season had been tonight. Players and cheerleaders dominated the center of the restaurant, talking over the rest of the patrons who minded not one bit as sports in this small town was a religion, and they were devout followers.

A few people called her name surprising Bonnie because she didn't expect anyone to remember her. When people graduated, it was out with the old and in with the new. Nevertheless, the little witch wiggled her fingers as she awkwardly side-stepped the barrage of Mystic Falls High most popular and most likely to never leave Virginia. She frowned because the latter part of that applied to her.

Luck wasn't operating on her side as one mammoth of a basketball player slid into her path. Craning her neck, Bonnie was graced with the gap-tooth smile of number 19.

"Bonnie Bennett, I haven't seen you in a minute. What's good?"

She couldn't recall his name though he looked vaguely familiar. "Hey," she replied lamely. "I'm all right. What about you?"

The ball player shrugged his massive shoulder, "Can't complain. Just got a full ride to Clemson," and his grin spread to include both ears.

"Awesome," and Bonnie truly meant it.

"Didn't see you at the game."

"I didn't even know there was one."

"Right, college chicks don't have time for high school shit, I get it."

"Yeah, look it's good to see you. And congrats about Clemson. We'll talk later."

But the basketball player wasn't letting Bonnie get away so easily, "Brett Colson is throwing a party. You should come."

"Can't. Busy."

"That's too bad, but if you change your mind…"

Smiling, Bonnie eased on by. "Good to see you." She made her way to a semi-secluded area of the Grill, dumped her weight in a booth.

Bonnie scrambled for her phone when she felt it vibrate in her purse. Someone sent her a video file. Whoever it was had set their number to private.

It could be a virus or something important. Glancing around, Bonnie opened the file.

She nearly twisted her ankle as she hopped out of the booth and tore out of the restaurant.

Damon had heard her car roll up on his property, listened as she screamed his name, and took his sweet time coming downstairs to see what she was mad about now.

"_What_ is this?" Bonnie shoved her phone in his face.

He watched the action on her smartphone screen. Krystal with a K on her knees between his legs giving him amazing head.

"You're not seriously asking me to explain to you the mechanics of a blo—"

"I mean, why was this sent to me? You think this is a joke? "

"I didn't send it. And what's the big fucking deal?"

"Who is she?"

"Why? You interested?" Damon leered.

Bonnie scowled. "Who is she, Damon?"

"Does it matter?"

"YES!"

Damon was supremely tickled by how incensed Bonnie was. "No one important."

"If you killed her…"

Annoyed, Damon rolled his eyes. "If by kill you mean she died having orgasms, sure I killed her."

"What about…"

"Don't even say her name."

Bonnie swallowed roughly. "You do realize you cheated on her, right?"

"Why do you care if I did or not? It's MY dick!"

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is the point? That I'm ruining some fairytale for you? If I didn't know any better I'd say you're acting like I cheated on _you_."

Bonnie scoffed and turned away.

"That's it, isn't it? You're not mad you got sent a video of who I got into last night. You're pissed it wasn't you."

Bonnie was not normally a slapper, but her arm twitched to deliver the right hand of justice to Damon's cheek. Too much blood rushed to her head at one time, and she thought she might black out, but color and sound was too vivid.

"Go to hell."

"Get off it, witch. You're probably relieved it was some random bitch and not the doppelganger on that video. "

"If you're trying to insinuate I'm jealous…"

"The fact you're standing in my living room trying to berate me for what I do is proof enough you are."

"I don't want to see shit like this," she angrily waved her phone in the air. "I'm not gonna tolerate that and you wouldn't either. Think what you want, Damon but you're wrong."

"Am I? So if that had been Stefan and not me, you mean to tell me you'd rush over here all high and mighty, raining fire and brimstone on his head? No, I didn't think so."

"You didn't even give me a chance to answer the question!"

"Because the answer is, you want me and not him. You love me and not him. _That's _why your ass would have deleted that file and gone about your business if had been Stefan. It's old now."

"What is?" Bonnie ground out.

"You are."

"Fuck you."

"Anytime."

Bonnie stormed for the door. She was done.

_Stop me._

A hand clamped on her shoulder. Bonnie was spun around. Damon kissed her. _Hard. _

Sensations attacked like the stinging prick of falling into ice water. The sharpness of it stole Bonnie's breath with the same veraciousness as Damon trying to pry her lips apart in order to stuff his tongue inside.

Their lips smacked apart loudly. Breathing hard like she, his eyes were searching.

_Again. _

His head lowered. Damon wasn't denied access as his tongue slid between her teeth and touched hers. His fingers knotted in Bonnie's hair, wrenching her neck almost painfully backwards so he could take more of her mouth.

Bonnie's hands fisted his shirt and battled his mouth, biting his lips, the desire to hurt him nearly brutal as she bobbed and weaved her tongue around his. Her lungs hurt.

_Enough._

She ripped away from him. His face was flushed and she knew hers was as well because she could feel it steaming. They both waited for her shrieks and accusations, the obscenities and name-calling, but the only thing protesting were the logs on fire in the fireplace.

They hadn't been lit a minute ago.

Damon didn't stop her this time as Bonnie neared the door. But he did say, "Guess you have another secret to either tell or keep from your bestie," his voice more graveled than he cared for it to be.

Bonnie deliberately licked the salty-sweet taste of his kiss off her lips. "No. I don't."

**A/N: In my head Bamon would not stop arguing so I had to make them stop. Tee-hee. Thank you so much for reading. Please review. Please. **


	7. Baited

**A/N: A trillion thank you's for the reviews for last chapter. Happy reading!**

* * *

Cold. Cold air fanned across the back of her neck but she wasn't shivering. Her stomach hadn't unknotted, and her knee wouldn't stop bouncing as she rolled her pencil between her fingers while her thoughts superseded everything else. She was high on dopamine and crashing on restraint. Every adjustment she made in the hard wooden chair caused the barest friction on that hive of nerves between her legs. A precipitous throb had her breathing harder. Her lips since last night intermittently flamed and tingled. And while her throat ran dry and her pert nipples beaded into hard points, her arms and legs were cooked noodles.

If asked what the lecture was about, Bonnie Bennett wouldn't be able to regurgitate a single point. Seated in the far back corner of the lecture hall, she slumped deeper into her desk.

Bonnie glowered at her phone. Its blank screen whispering to her to power it on, pull up that vid, and burn into memory the act that had her driving the hubcaps off her car to get to the boardinghouse. She had acted on the behest of jealousy, and what should have made her face palm herself for her lunacy, Bonnie wanted to stand up taller and stick her tits out. The last time she felt so out of control was at the height of using expression. And she did feel like she tapped a vein, plunged a needle in, and shot herself up with a potent narcotic.

Her wholesome cardigan set, thick and frumpy was a lie. Her outside packaging didn't reflect the turmoil happening on the inside. Bonnie's stomach wasn't occupied by butterflies but vultures. _The kiss. That _kiss. From midnight to now she hadn't stopped thinking about it. It wasn't the kiss itself that rocked her core. It was the revelation after, or perhaps even during that startled Bonnie. More, she needed more of it. Stupid, though. Mouth fucking Damon the way she had.

What made matters even worse was the fact he was madly in love. In love with her friend who just so happened to be her _best_ friend. Yet Bonnie hadn't cared, had given nary a shit about his feelings for Elena, or even how hurt she'd be if she ever found out. None of that mattered except…except finally ending her misery and doing the one thing Bonnie told herself she could never do.

The taste of Damon's mouth lingered on her tongue serving as a painful and pleasant reminder that for those sixty seconds she owned him. She left behind a calling card, a stamp. Would anyone be able to see it?

Her pulse settled and her breathing evened out as she tipped into a deep, paralytic daydream. Bonnie was in her dorm room. The covers were lifted inviting a draft to fondle her skin and made her contract into a tighter ball in the center of the bed. Yet the cold was replaced by the thickness and weight of a body—a male body, naked just as she was. An arm draped across her waist, drew her closer molding her to a frame that felt foreign and familiar in unity. Hairy thighs tickled the back of hers; warm breath fluttered across the shell of her ear and cheek. Her shoulder blades were nestled in a broad chest. Her ass nestled a phallus that was stirring, awakening, gorging. Bonnie was warm, content.

A hand explored her. Teasingly. Barely touching but touching enough for her to feel it and want more. She wiggled. Sighed when that hand caressed her ribs one by one, contoured to her hip, curved inward to trace the smoothness of her inner thigh.

Her teeth gouged her bottom lip when that hand sunk between her legs that she parted slightly. Her heart raced, pounded in her ears while those naughty fingers explored her mons, enticing that bundle to grow as stiff as a cock. A flick, a rub, a pinch, a figure eight again and again slashed against her clit. She let out a little cry when a finger or two plunged into her wet folds.

He never said a word. Didn't really have to. He communicated with his fingers stroking her to fever-pitch and sending her off a cliff.

Right on the verge of orgasm, Bonnie muttered a name…_his_ name...

Her own whimper snapped her back into reality.

Bonnie sat up in her seat abruptly making it creak and groan loudly enough that several heads swiveled in her direction. Cheeks heating, Bonnie tucked her chin down and pretended as if she knew needed something out of her satchel. Leaning sideways, the makeshift pendant around her neck poked out from her cardigan. The lapis lazuli stone reflected what light touched it, and since it was a cloudy day that wasn't much. In her periphery Bonnie felt eyes on her. When she peeked, a guy was staring at her intently.

"What?" she mouthed.

His full bottom lip ticked up in a patronizingly knowing smile. Bonnie flipped him off.

Twenty minutes later, her uneventful Technology and Society class came to a close.

Koffi had been waiting for her and tucked her phone away once she spotted Bonnie. The two hugged. During their embrace, the nosey guy slipped by them tossing another self-satisfied smirk at the petite woman. Bonnie frowned.

"What's that?" Koffi pointed at the necklace cushioned between her friend's breasts when they pulled away.

Bonnie tucked Damon's daylight talisman in her shirt, "I'm holding it for a friend."

"Friend, right," the skepticism was thick.

"If I was getting some benefits, I'd tell you."

"I would hope so." Koffi elbowed Bonnie as the two left the building, heading to the cafeteria. "Change of plans for Saturday. We're not going to the movies."

"Why not?"

Koffi affected a coquettish look, "We've been invited by a very well-known Alpha to his line brother's birthday party," she waggled her brows.

"Since when do we know any Alphas?"

"Since a particular one saw you in your running shorts and sports bra in the weight room."

The green-eyed witch blinked. She had taken advantage of her student privileges by working out at least once a week in the weight room. She usually used the facilities when foot traffic was low as she was still uncomfortable around crowds. The last time Bonnie went, there had been a few guys she pegged as athletes and gave them a wide berth. Nevertheless, her heart gave a little lurch at the idea a stranger found her attractive.

"So he's expecting what?" Bonnie kept her tone even. "That I may be up for anything based on my exercise gear? No thanks."

Koffi picked non-existent lint off the sleeve of her coat. "What did you say to me when you popped up literally out of the blue? That you want this year to be much different than last. Being more social, getting into the real meat of the college experience. Here's an opportunity and you want to pussyfoot around."

Bonnie's cheeks reddened.

"Although…I still have no idea where you disappeared off to," Koffi arched a brow, a challenge to quit the bullshit and tell her the truth. She knew enough about Bonnie to know she didn't struggle with drug or alcohol addiction. She didn't possess any of the signs. Not to say it wasn't possible, but her spidey sense said that wasn't the reason why Bonnie missed the entire fall semester, and a significant chunk of spring. In fact, Koffi wondered about the strings pulled in order for Bonnie to even enroll in classes.

"I took a leave of absence for personal reasons," Bonnie gave her standard response and jotted up the steps of the student center.

"Un-hun. We don't have to stay long. An hour, two tops. Come on, Bon."

"Can I think about it?"

"You have until Friday to decide," Koffi flashed her ID card and picked up a tray once they made it to the cafeteria. "Remember this year is about making moments, and moments can't be made if you're held up in your room like the hunchback of Notre Dame."

"I _said _I'd think about it, dammit."

"Well, I hope that soul-searching leads to a yes."

Bonnie contained her groan and ignored the flash of panic at the idea of socializing. Maybe one day it would stop feeling like she was being waterboarded. Until then, she wouldn't meticulously weigh her options before coming to a decision. And she'd prefer for that decision to have nothing to do with staving off her craving for Damon.

* * *

Spying was elicit. The perverse thrill of being caught in the act of voyeurism sent his nerves and synapses on a tailspin. He couldn't look away though he knew he should. This was private, and he was breaking two centuries worth of unspoken laws. You could take a peek but nothing more; linger and suffer the consequences.

He waited for the flaccidness of his cock to harden. Waited for the slow pulse in his jugular to match the frenetic speed of his brother's thrusts into what he imagined was an exorbitantly wet twat. Once he felt that flicker of arousal trigger in his head and his body responded in kind, _then_ he'd move along.

Pale white glutes flexed as his lower spine piston in and out, kept up a steady grind that had the bitch under him mewling and crying out blasphemous expletives. He was aware of his audience, having stretched his sentience beyond what was taking place in his bed. He grinned to himself, ego fed and irritated, indifferent, and reticent.

He hiked her leg, that deliciously thick thigh on his shoulder, going deeper, mining in her channel mercilessly. The bedframe groaned and squeaked, but it was drowned out by the screaming vixen whose cunt fisted his dick.

"I'm…I'm—oh god…oh…oh fu—oh yes! I'm coming!"

The fiend above her turned his head to stare directly at the person watching through the crack in the door. His smile was twisted and born out of nightmares when the evil monster tiptoed from the darkest corner of the closet to drag its victim to hell.

They held gazes, the brothers. It should have been awkward. The younger should have scampered off to throw bleach in his eyes, but he remained rooted to the spot. He could convince himself it wasn't to see the finale, the grand finish, but to be there in case the elder got inventive and seriously hurt the woman.

Screams pierced their sensitive ears. The elder never broke eye contact with his sibling as he pushed the woman into an orgasmic zenith that had her speaking an unknown language. Her inner walls clutched him in a fist that had his eyes roll, momentarily, into the back of his head. Therefore the net was broken. His lids slid shut, his back arched one final time and he shot his seed into her.

Damon collapsed on top of Krystal with a K. Winded he said, "I hoped you enjoyed the show, pervert."

Stefan shook his head, turned, and moseyed off.

* * *

With his night's entertainment gone having sated some of his ennui, Damon journeyed to Stefan's room. He heard water running. The shower. He stood posted against the doorframe, arms crossed. Ten minutes later, little brother stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped low around his waist. He didn't start at seeing Damon hovering.

"Learn anything while watching me fuck the tits off that girl?" Damon opened the conversation.

"Not really," the corners of Stefan's mouth tugged down. "Although now I see why the ladies we've unfortunately shared preferred me to you. You need to up your stroke game."

The gloating smirk bled off Damon's veneer. He bit into his tongue to stop himself from retaliating with a retort proclaiming there was one woman on this planet that lusted after him and wanted nothing to do with Stefan's lanky ass.

"Funny, brother," Damon replied with some effort.

"I wasn't telling a joke but only the truth," Stefan shrugged as he thumbed through shirts in his armoire. He selected a navy blue Henley, and a brand new pair of Levi's, the tag still attached. Stefan tossed his clothes on the bed, hosed himself down with deodorant and cologne. He whipped off his towel bearing his butt cheeks to his brother.

That certainly caused Damon to arch a brow. Stefan wasn't into exhibitionism. He averted his gaze as his brother snapped into his boxers and hopped into his jeans.

"And to think I haven't used your toothbrush to clean the toilets," a beat. "Who are you getting dolled up for?"

Stefan's gaze was stern. "None of your business." His phone ringed and he answered, "Hey…what's up?" he listened then laughed, lowly almost flirtatiously.

Damon's teeth ground at recognizing Bonnie's voice. Hearing her voice made him think about their kiss, and thinking about their kiss made his clothes feel too heavy, and that there pressure on his brain. His expression changed from feigned boredom to something that exposed too much. He stood taller in his Durango's. Listening. They were agreeing to meet up somewhere.

"All right," Stefan hung up.

When he was sure his tone wouldn't give anything away, Damon said, "You're going out with Bonnie?"

Stefan shot him a look that said 'why do you care' before he donned his shirt.

"If you're getting together with her to figure out…"

"Not everything is about you," Stefan replied absently as he stuck his wallet and cell into his back pockets. "Excuse me," he edged by Damon leaving his bedroom.

Damon tailed Stefan downstairs. "Could you relay to the little bitch I'm getting cabin fever, and when I get cabin fever I get creative?"

The younger spun quickly, glowering, "First of all don't call the woman who's saved your ungrateful ass a bitch. Second of all, if you want to talk to Bonnie you have her number."

For five seconds Damon stared at Stefan blankly and then burst out into laughter. "You're really getting into this."

"Getting into what?"

Damon circled his brother like a shark, "Trying to reboot something between you and the witch. Let's be honest, you wouldn't bother trying to put me in my place if Caroline hadn't ran off to God knows where, and Elena was still the least bit interested in fucking you."

"Wow, I guess you got me there, Damon," Stefan was at the door in an instant. "I do want to thank you for reminding me I didn't always treat Bonnie with respect. I can at least see her in the flesh to make amends while you're stuck here…squeezing fake orgasms out of random chicks. See you later, brother."

Hand curling into a fist, Damon let the rage soothe and ease him for a minute, and when the minute was up he added alcohol to the mix downing shot after shot of bourbon. His gums tingled and something…he rubbed a spot in the middle of his chest, burned occasionally, and Damon had no idea what the hell it was or meant.

One thing was for sure. He was getting out of this gotdamned house tonight!

* * *

"I think he's getting closer to flipping his switch."

That proclamation came via Stefan Salvatore who slurped a stoli and cranberry without making a face. It was far from bourbon after all.

This was the first time Stefan offered to take her to dinner to a dark, smoky supper club. It was more lounge than restaurant with low tables and lighting, a menu that boasted American and French inspired cuisine. A local band played cover songs from great artists of the late 90s early 2000s that meshed with the quiet conversations of the patrons who sipped wine or carbonated drinks mixed with alcohol. It was by far the nicest place Bonnie had been taken to in her twenty years of life.

Nevertheless it was weird for the Bennett witch. She rarely, if ever, talked to Stefan about anything of substance. Conversations with the younger Salvatore had revolved around spells that could save his then girlfriend. Personal questions about their lives were never factored or exchanged. Even being this physically close to Stefan reminded Bonnie that he was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger to her. Funny how you could know someone for years and still not know anything about them.

Withdrawing the black straw from her mouth, Bonnie blinked owlishly. "Really? How do you figure that?"

"He doesn't know I've been watching him carefully for the last couple of days," tonight notwithstanding, Stefan elected not to mention. "But I've seen a change. Subtle it was, change was there all the same."

Bonnie's heart thundered for a few seconds prior to settling down. "W-what do you think caused the change?" She did her best to temper her thirst for validation that the kiss they shared affected Damon in any way.

Stefan licked his lips and a woman walking nearby tripped over her feet. A corner of his mouth kicked up a little. He settled against the tufted booth, one leg extended, the other bent at the knee. "That I'm not sure. Elena is out of town. Something was up with Jeremy so she took a flight to New Mexico."

Bonnie hadn't known that but kept listening.

"I doubt her absence is the reason. One other person has been at the house since his confinement besides you and myself, but I know that individual wouldn't be enough to get Damon to act emotionally," the look he gave Bonnie made her flesh break out into goose bumps.

"I haven't seen or talked to him in a few days."

"And I think that's what's gotten to him."

Bonnie fought off a smile. "Why are you telling me this? I thought you wanted me to stay out of it?"

"I do but Damon is your friend and I know you'd want to know how he was doing."

She murmured quietly, surveyed the scene before giving Stefan her undivided attention. "Have you heard from Caroline?"

"No," Stefan sighed heavily. "You?"

Bonnie shook her head. "Wherever she is, I'm sure she'll come home when she's ready."

Their bubbly blonde, no-humanity friend had taken off a day or two after the Enzo-Damon-Sarah debacle. Bonnie was mildly worried about what Caroline was getting into, but after the blonde vampire's cold and snarky reaction to Bonnie's return from prison world purgatory, the witch wasn't so inclined to stick her neck out to find her.

She did inquire, "How's Sarah doing?"

Before Stefan could answer, their waitress appeared with Bonnie's appetizer: barbecue chicken flatbread served on a long white ceramic platter.

"Your entrees will be right out. Can I get you two anything else? Refills?"

"Yes," Stefan readily agreed. "Can you make it a bourbon neat this time? Double the bourbon."

Nodding, the waitress wandered off.

"Have some?" Bonnie pushed the plate toward Stefan who declined. "Your niece, Sarah, how is she?"

"Right," the younger Salvatore cleared his throat. "She's back in school and fortified with a vervain bracelet I compelled her never to take off after telling her to never step foot in the state of Virginia again."

Bonnie thought that was extreme but probably for the best in the long run. "I'm glad she's all right."

"Me too."

"I still don't know why it got into Enzo's head to mess with her," Bonnie bit into her appetizer.

"As big as it is you'd think he would have thought of better ways to spend his immortality then fucking around with us."

Bonnie snickered. "Yeah. And I still haven't figured out between you and Damon who he's in love with."

Stefan snorted. "Damon."

"Tell me something about yourself," Bonnie changed the subject. "You and me, we've never talked like this."

"No, we haven't and again that's my fault."

"Mine, too though just a little bit," Bonnie illustrated by pressing her index and thumb together. Stefan chuckled lowly. "After so much shit happened I didn't want to know anything about you, especially if it wasn't going to help me with a spell. We've talked more in the last two weeks than we have in the last three years."

Shame warmed Stefan's cheeks and he averted his gaze for a few moments. "There's no excuse for that."

"No there's not. But we can improve on that. So deets. Out with them. I want to know who Stefan Salvatore is."

He had too much history to narrow it down to one specific point in his life so Stefan talked about simple things. Colors that he liked, songs that gave him a different point of view of the world, movies that had him convinced he lived among geniuses, books that broke his heart, foods he could taste just by thinking of them.

It wasn't until now Bonnie realized how nice his voice was. Resonate. A little syrupy.

Bonnie looked at him askance, "If you don't want to answer this you don't have to…What is it really like living without your humanity?"

That was a layered question and one Stefan grappled with from time to time. Though it sounded pretty straightforward. Not giving a damn who lived, died, or who you hurt in the process. Unfortunately, simplicity had little to do with non-humanity. Complex beings could never stop being complex whether they chose to acknowledge their emotions or not.

Stefan cleared his throat and adjusted on the seat, "For me, each time the experience was different. The first time I was a whore." Bonnie's eyes widened as her eyebrows kissed her hairline. "The second time I didn't do much of anything. I spent a lot of time blanking out, not noticing anything or anyone around me. I had checked out completely.

"The third, I was a bit of both, the whore and the zombie. And this final time, well you saw how I was. It's not always being impulsive and saying whatever comes to mind, and being a stone cold killer. Even without our humanity we're still making choices. The only thing that's really different is we don't regret or agonize over the bad and evil choices."

"Freedom, did you feel that?" Bonnie's brow scrunched as she scrutinized him.

Stefan met her weighty stare head on, "Hell. Yes. And that's what makes it so hard to turn it back on."

That stayed on Bonnie's mind as they ate, drank, and talked until the supper club nearly closed.

Back on campus, Bonnie undressed. Her phone rang. Spying the caller, she huffed out an exasperated breath, answered. "What do you want, Damon?"

"Bon-nie," he sang her name like it was hymn. "What do you think?" his timbre turned brusque. "I want out of this house and pisshole of a town. I've let you keep me here for two weeks."

"Feeling anything yet?" Bonnie tossed her clothes into the hamper.

"I feel lots of things."

"If none of those things are compassion, a sense of right and wrong, empathy, sorry, can't parole you."

Damon's dark chuckle made her stomach contract and clit jump. "Come on, BonBon. The world is no fun with me locked away here. The semester is almost over…how long before your gal pal Koffi leaves for the homestead? Who are you going to have to talk to once she's gone? You don't want it to settle back in, do you? The loneliness. The isolation. Because you will be isolated…if I'm not around."

"Nice try, Damon. I've survived every bullshit storm that tried to take me out. Spending the summer doing things I actually want, I don't need you or anyone else to hold my hand for that."

"Spoken so assuredly. Well, let's examine things from another angle. You all expect me to welcome my humanity in with open arms, yet you have me isolated from humanity. Does that make sense? Keep me from the thing you want me to be. Your rehabilitation method is _flawed_."

Bonnie smirked, sunk down into an overstuffed armchair. "You hated people to start with. Mortals did shit to influence you, Damon. Don't pretend otherwise." She couldn't see him shrug but she knew he had.

"All right so I never saw the value in humans other than being my food. Sue me. But mortals are amusing…interesting. Finite. Conflicted in your ordinariness. Well, not you, my little BonBon."

"Stop calling me BonBon! I _hate_ that nickname."

"Really?" Damon deadpanned. "Then why does your heart speed every time I call you that? You like the way it rolls off my tongue. It makes you feel special."

"I'm getting off this phone now. I have things to do."

His mocking laughter made Bonnie flush.

"Answer this, when are you going to stop lying?"

"Lying about what?" Bonnie's grip tightened on her phone.

"Lying about…shit everything! You have no fuckin' clue who you are and think you have to be a certain way because of you're a witch—"

"—that's funny coming from someone who thinks he has to be an asshole because he's a vampire. You can stop the lecture right now, Damon. Between the two of us, I've always had a better sense of who I am. I found my place in life and own it. You let others dictate who you are and they owned _you_."

"I think you have that completely mixed up."

"I think the fuck not."

"So you're telling me you own being a spineless, selfless, asexual martyr, is that what you're saying?"

"You know good and damn well everything you just said is false."

"Is that right?"

Insufferable! Bonnie raged internally. He was so frustrating she had no idea why she hadn't hung up on his ass. Damon called to manipulate her to let him out of his cage. Please, he'd have to try harder than that.

"You know, I'm surprised you know what the sun looks like since you spent years living in your friends' shadows."

Bonnie's eye twitched.

"You haven't owned shit, Bonnie. You've owned mediocrity by the company you keep and called it a gold mine. You owned accepting death so long as your piss poor friends were happy. You owned being owned by those gotdamn meddling ass spirits, your enemies, but no you never owned yourself.

"You want to know a secret? Elena wasn't the first person I saw when I came back to this miserable town. Nor was it Caroline. They weren't the ones I followed one hot summer night five years ago. It was girl—young woman with chocolate and auburn hair climbing ass first, and what a lovely ass it was and still is, out of a window at her grandmother's house."

Bonnie swallowed uneasily, chest rose higher and higher to the point her bra felt like a corset.

"She dashed down the street and hopped into this beat up Scion that took her to some house down by the quarry. I could tell it was her first night of real rebellion from the way her heart pounded, and how she kept looking out the back windshield thinking she was going to get caught.

"At first she was uptight constantly biting her lip, eyes wide like she'd never seen shit before in her life. The person who drove her came up, asked if she were all right, asked if she wanted to leave and what did she say?

"'I'm not going anywhere, and I don't care who is having another breakdown. I need to breathe. I need to be me for once and not a grief counselor. This is my night off.' Where the hell has _that _Bonnie been? She could have been around all this time, but I think she was revived with my tongue. I wonder what other parts of me could bring her out. For good."

Stunned, Bonnie didn't know Damon had hung up until she heard the annoying dial tone lambasting her ears. Slowly she lowered the phone as her heart pounded her ribs.

She called him back but hung up because anything she had to say would lack force. The game had become psychological or always had been, but that didn't mean Bonnie had to make herself into an easy target every single time Damon ran off at the mouth. He could throw up a thousand examples of how she used to be. At the end of the day he wasn't getting out.

An hour later her phone was blaring again. This time it was Stefan calling. Right when Bonnie answered someone knocked on her door.

"Hey, Stef—" she barely got out while sauntering to see who it was that decided now was a good time to pay her visit.

"Damon's gone!"

She had just gotten the door open. "What?" Bonnie's eyes ballooned as her mind split in two. One half shocked by what Stefan just exclaimed, and the other trying to figure out why the woman standing in front of her looked vaguely familiar.

She wasn't given the chance to ask either of them questions.

The woman with shoulder length dark hair and a peach-hued complexion tilted her head, arched a brow before telltale black veins undulated beneath her lower lids.

Realization hit too late. Reaction was hindsight.

Her phone went flying out of her hand as she was thrown into a wall. The door to her room slammed shut. Bonnie's surprised squawk transformed into a scream of pain once needle sharp enameled fangs stabbed through her neck, and another pinprick caught in the arm, a syringe if Bonnie had to guess.

Stefan's appeals for her to tell him what the fuck was happening were nothing more than static through her damaged phone. Old power rose in Bonnie fighting against the drug infecting her nervous system. Concentration, at this point, was impossible.

Hands, soft hands trailed from her waist, over her breasts, and clutched her shoulders keeping her pinned to the wall. The chain around her neck was ripped clean at the same time the woman's fangs ejected from Bonnie's throat. She groaned and gravity whirled.

Lips like feathers danced from the ravaged bite wound to the corner of the witch's jaw, and flirted at the shell of her ear, "The owner of this ring needs it back."

Krystal stepped away and grinned as Bonnie wilted to the floor succumbing to blood loss and the sedative. "I'm a bit disappointed you didn't put up more of a struggle, but I didn't exactly fight fair, did I?"

She watched the girl struggle for lucidly wondering what she planned to do with that outstretched arm of hers that flopped limply to her lap. Licking warm blood from her mouth, Krystal pivoted on her heels that carried her to the vampire who waited under a light post on the east end of Whitmore's campus with a face that looked like it rather break than smile.

Krystal admired the large daylight ring secured on her index finger. Her dark smirking eyes found his.

An upturned palm presented itself. Pouting slightly, Krystal forked over the ring, dropping it in the center of that palm.

"Where's my reward?" she asked.

From the scent of O negative blood on her tongue, she already claimed her reward.

"Your reward is your neck remaining intact," he slid his ring on the middle finger of his left hand.

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't tell you to feed from her."

Krystal shrugged, seeing it as no big deal. She had never fed from a witch before. Certainly he hadn't expected her to pass up the opportunity.

She didn't see him move but her neck found its way in his fist and her back slammed into the light post rocking the metal pole so violently it threatened to topple over. Krystal clawed futilely at his hand whereas her spine became steel rod straight as he leaned in close enough to count his individual eyelashes. Wolves did this, lions, any carnivore beast when their authority was defied.

"That'll be the last time you taste her. She. _Is_. Mine," Damon snarled and flung Krystal aside who stumbled and nearly fell on her ass.

"She's yours, hun?"

Saying nothing, the darkness residing in his eyes said it all. Fucking try it and see what happens.

**A/N: How did Damon get out? What's going to happen next? Can't wait to read you guys' theories, speculations, wishes…Thank you again for reading. Be kind and review. XOXO**


	8. Deja Vu

Yelling wasn't going to get anything solved but it certainly felt hella good. The sheer volume at which words could be pitched and hurled like an arrow whizzing from a bow striking its target, momentarily rendering it mute was a rush. Everything pounded inside of her that her heart could have been mistaken for propellers, helicopter blades.

Her arm stretched out in front of her, fingers spreading. The energy of two thousand years of magic tingled in the center of her palm and each individual fingertip. Focusing her attention on the object in front of her, Bonnie breathed in and out. Words were translated into images and those images became live action as the car barreling away from her began to slow, the back end lifting slightly off the pavement.

The driver, confused, didn't know what to do. Step on the gas, step on the brake, do any combination of both? The radio which had been turned off switched on, the windows blew out, the horn started wailing.

"I wasn't finished saying what I had to say," Bonnie informed. Slowly she began to approach.

He jerked his vision to the rearview mirror and saw her coming. She wasn't moving as if she had urgent business to conduct. In fact, she appeared to be on an evening stroll, shooting the breeze while shyly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

His door was spontaneously wrenched open and he was snatched out of the car by an invisible force; his shoulder and hip smashed into the road.

Twisting his head to the left, Damon Salvatore groaned, his eyes landing on a pair peep toe boots. "Bonnie…?"

He didn't get to finish the rest of his sentiment because that boot rammed into his face.

* * *

_**Hours before…**_

Stefan found her crumpled on the floor in a small pool of blood. He swore an oath before dashing to her side, the door of her room closing with an ominous slam.

"Bonnie," he said in a dulcet albeit tremulous tone. His fingers pushed through the mass of hair glued to her neck, wet with blood. Stefan found her pulse despite being able to hear her heart beating within her ribcage. His lashes shuttered closed in relief he'd made it in the nick of time; however, Bonnie wasn't out of the woods yet. Stefan picked her up and laid her on the bed, ripped into his wrist and held his bleeding arm over the bite.

This was déjà vu with a twist. Two weeks ago he had barraged into her old room, had a confrontation with Damon, and used his blood to heal Bonnie's wounds. His thoughts took another turn some three years in the past, stumbling on her unconscious form in the cave beneath one of the Lockwood properties after she and Abby had gotten the spelled coffin open. Seeing her like that, thinking he may have gotten her killed in his quest to extract revenge on Klaus, had given Stefan is first real taste of humanity. That same sensation pierced through his abdomen now.

Carefully, Stefan poured his blood down Bonnie's throat—after propping her up a little, and hoped she didn't choke. Satisfied she had enough in her system to heal her, he waited for her to wake up. While he waited, his gaze betrayed him by trailing to that vermillion puddle on the floor of the headiest blood he'd ever smelled. His gums itched fiercely, and were on fire within seconds. And that fire raced through his nasal passages straight to his orbital sockets reflecting the change. He slammed his eyes closed. Stefan's lips twitched as he begged his fangs not to come out.

They didn't listen.

Grunting, he flung himself away from Bonnie and searched her room for cleaning supplies and a towel. He found a towel and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. Armed, Stefan clomped to the mess on the floor. He stared at it, nostrils flared so widely it was beginning to hurt.

"Fuck," he whispered and fell to his knee. His hand hovered, drawing closer. Fearing he was being watched and judged, Stefan glanced at Bonnie who was still slumbering away, vulnerable, alone with a vampire that had a notorious blood addiction. He snapped his head to the stain that was taunting him.

His fingers were only an inch, maybe less away. Unable to fight it, Stefan dipped his fingers into the blood finding it shockingly warm. Quickly he stuffed his fingers in his mouth, sucked, and shivered in damn near ecstasy. Bonnie's blood didn't only have a profound effect on his thirst, but his libido. He was hard instantly. Shit. The younger Salvatore called himself a ton of foul names before unscrewing the cap of alcohol and dousing the blood with a liberal amount as if it were holy water. Stefan mopped up the blood and listed the presidents in order, named the capitals of the states in his head to distract himself from draining Bonnie dry. He had no idea how Damon managed to live—alone—with her for four months and not go crazy. _How_?

Slowly Bonnie awakened. Her room was unbearably warm though her body was chilled. Who started a fire? What day was it? Class, she had class didn't she? She made an attempt to sit up and winced. A hand touched her shoulder causing her eyes to spring open in shock.

"S-Stefan?"

"Yeah. Easy," he sat on the edge of the bed and coaxed Bonnie to lie down. Stefan had a semi-hard time meeting her gaze knowing he tasted her blood in a moment of weakness and his physiological response to it.

Bonnie's head sunk into the pillow. She studied him for a second wondering if it were her foggy imagination or did Stefan's eyes look bright and crazed? Strangely Bonnie felt the need to cover herself, climb underneath the duvet and yank it up to her chin.

"What are you doing here?"

Stefan kept his gaze averted and dropped a question of his own, "Do you remember what happened?"

Bonnie, frowning, swallowed as her hand instinctively went to her neck. Memories trickled in…that woman standing on the other side of her door, fangs in her throat, a prick on her arm…she touched that spot next.

"Can you…my throat is dry."

Her impromptu medic was up and on the move retrieving a bottled water from the fridge. He helped Bonnie take a few sips.

Hot mouth temporarily abated, Bonnie sat up on an elbow trying to get her bearings together. Tiredly she recounted what she could remember.

Stefan was grim. Once Bonnie rattled off, the best she could, a description of the woman who attacked her, he gritted his teeth.

"He has his ring," Bonnie informed. Its missing weight between her breasts added another insult to injury. She was _pissed _that bitch got the best of her. Why did it keep happening? Bonnie glowered.

"We need to find him." The faster I can get out of this room and breathe some fresh air, the better for my control, Stefan withheld from saying.

"Forget that. I need to see something else first."

* * *

_**Three hours before Bonnie's attack…**_

His ass was numb from sitting in the same spot for hours on end. The second stage of prolonged confinement was settling in like dust, and he'd begin to lose energy, space out for minutes or hours at a time. Vampires weren't created to be idle, nomadic—yes, but not idle. They needed to move forward even while remaining physically unchanged.

The fuzzy surface of the tennis ball smacked into his palm before he sent it bouncing off the adjacent wall once more. It's a pitiful life indeed if the height of his week was having Stefan spy on him having sex. The boy was always weird, and Damon knew Stefan's taste for the perversion ran far deeper and dirtier than his. Damon could say he got nothing out of it, and didn't much care if Stefan came in his pants or rubbed one out. Nothing mattered. That was the point though forces in the form of a witchy sprite would say otherwise, as if she knew any better. _As if_ she could control him.

The vampire stopped in mid-internal rant. An idea popped into his head. An idea so obvious Damon cursed at himself for not coming to it sooner as he jumped to his feet.

* * *

_**Currently…**_

Stefan had fired off questions as he drove to the boardinghouse to which Bonnie only answered one. No, she had no idea how Damon got out. Was it possible her magic had weakened over a two-week period? Maybe. Though she doubted it. If Emily's tomb spell could last for a hundred and forty-five years, her sealing Damon in his house should have lasted just as long. Admittedly she hadn't used a celestial event to make it binding, but essentially Bonnie had pulled off the same spell or at least a variation. Could he have found another witch to get him out? Yes.

Bonnie was out of Stefan's Porsche before it came to a complete stop. She didn't immediately rush inside. She stood right there at the awning sussing with her power any abnormalities or anomalies. Any cracks, fissures, breaches.

"My magic's still intact, but there's…" Bonnie trailed off. "The only explanation to make is another witch dropped the barrier long enough for Damon to get out."

Stefan, hands on his hips, jaw muscle jumping, said, "Need my blood for a locator spell?"

"No." Bonnie paused and tugged on that piece of her essence she left behind (accidentally) in Damon. She could feel him. "I know where he is."

Stefan's thick eyebrows kissed his hairline. "How-?"

"I need you to do something."

"What?"

Bonnie looked him directly in the eye, "Go along with whatever I do. Can you do that?"

Nodding, Stefan quietly agreed.

* * *

_**Now…**_

He basked in his freedom though being slightly overwhelmed by the various heart beats that perform a song only he could hear. He took his time squeezing through the partially to fully inebriated horde who thrashed around, dry humping to a song that would have a cleric crossing himself. There was a kind of elemental tang to the air that made his saliva gush and flood his mouth, made his hunger flare to life, made his cock stiff and erect like an obelisk.

Giggling blondes and brunettes couldn't resist running their manicured fingers along his broad shoulders or across his pecks and abs. Quite a few even pinched or grabbed his ass.

Damon Salvatore enjoyed every moment of it.

Settled in a black leather booth, Damon bobbed his head to the pulsating music meant to tempt and muddle senses. His tongue danced around a raspberry vodka flavored sucker—a moniker of the club, as he waited for his bottle of Jack Daniels to be delivered. While he waited, he unearthed his phone and deleted the voicemails and text messages that filled up his inboxes, most of them having come from the doppelganger. He could care less she was helping her surprisingly still alive, boring-as-shit brother.

Someone approached his booth. She was tall, probably five-eight in her bare feet, but in her heels she topped out at six. Her hair was a single waterfall of chestnut pin straight locks parted clean down the middle. The Amazon smiled at him with ruby red lips.

"Hi," she greeted in a very heavy German accent. "Is anyone joining you?"

"You are," Damon brazened.

Her full cheeks nearly eclipsed her gray eyes as she smiled. "You sure you don't mind?"

"Please, make yourself at home."

The woman tucked her hands underneath the short hem of her bedazzled dress, and slid into the booth, squeezing herself close enough that Damon could identify her brand of shampoo. She extended a slender hand, nails painted in coral lacquer that matched her dress.

Damon took her proffered limb, feeling the blood rush in her veins. He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed her knuckles. "Jeremy Gilbert, nice to meet you," he managed not to snicker.

"Anna Dohman. Strange, you don't look like a Jeremy."

"So I've been told."

After that Anna proceeded to talk his head off about her aching feet, and how she loved traveling to Zurich in the winter although Frankfurt, Germany was where she was from originally. Anna helped herself to his Jack Daniels once it finally arrived at the table. She laughed at all his jokes, touched his knee five times, his shoulder six times, leaned into him ten times.

Done with her ritualistic mating game, Damon snared her with just a look, pupils dilating. "I'm going to feed on you. Sit there and don't say a word. Give me your neck."

Anna stilled, head tilted back offering herself up to be devoured and devour the hungry vampire did.

Krystal arrived surveying the tableau they made. "Leave some for me."

Damon paused in his feeding, meeting Krystal's bloodlust-filled orbs. He didn't care to be joined or to share. He could see Krystal taking liberties, getting too attached to their very casual arrangement, so casual he forgot she was even there with him.

Bottom lip bloody, Damon squinted at Krystal who waited impatiently for an invitation. She scoffed when too much silence lapsed between them.

"Lemme guess, this one is yours, too?"

Damon whispered in the girl's ear to leave. Robotically she obeyed, sliding out of the booth, wobbling in her heels as she got lost in the gyrating crowd.

"If you're hungry get your own damn meal," he retorted and snatched the bottle of bourbon, chugging it greedily.

Unmoved, Krystal wiggled into the opposite side of the booth. She signaled for a passing waitress to fetch her another double cranberry vodka.

"You were much more fun when you were on lockdown," Krystal remarked. "Still irritated from earlier? Mad that I got to taste her and you haven't?"

"I _have_ tasted her. Years ago."

Krystal twisted her lips, "You must be a masochist or an idiot. I mean," she laughed deprecatingly, "not only is her blood the stuff of legends, but I'm questioning your ability to see. She's fucking _hot_! And you haven't lifted a single finger to claim her. You haven't once tried to fuck?"

Damon remained mute. Old him would argue the witch wasn't the kind of girl you took home to bang righteously, but the kind you wooed, married, and knocked up as soon as possible.

Ignorant of his inner musings, Krystal lifted her left hand, palm facing up, "Idiot," her right hand went up next, "or masochist."

Damon's molars ground on top of one another as he imagined it was Krystal's head. He looked away, unwilling to fall into the trap she tried to spring. He wasn't in the mood to be chatty.

Beneath the deafening bass of the music, the unmistakable sound of a neck being snapped made Damon's ears twitch. When he glanced at Krystal, in slow motion almost, she tipped sideways and landed on the floor with a thud.

Damon stared at Krystal, nudged her with his boot. She was unresponsive.

He couldn't see her but Damon knew Bonnie was there. He sat completely unbothered. Waiting for her to show herself knowing she wouldn't be able to resist. Not after the night she had. Not after the last conversation in which he decimated her character simply to get a rise out of her. The beginnings of a smile flirted, but he bit into his cheek, tapped his fingers along the back of the booth, effecting the picture of nonchalance.

"I figured you'd be halfway to Greece by now." Her voice, her disembodied voice boomed right in his head, making Damon start. "Maybe New York or London. But no. You're right here. Right where I can get to you, vampire. Dumb."

"Or maybe I saw no point in running because it's not like you're a real threat to me," Damon replied conversationally as if she were seated across from him.

Bonnie made a noise of reproach, "I see it's time I've taught you a lesson on respect."

Damon yawned. "Yeaaah, I'll pass."

He caught movement in his peripheral, spotted his brother who waved his middle finger in air. Damon rolled his eyes but that roll came to an abrupt stop the minute the little witch practically materialized in front of Stefan dressed in a cleavage bearing top, a skirt that with her ass was dallying with being indecent, and knee high boots.

Damon, temporarily immobile, had to bear witness to Bonnie dragging her fingers down Stefan's leather clad arm to his hand that clutched one of the club's specialty lollipops. His sanctimonious brother easily relinquished the sucker to Bonnie, turned his head to peer at her as she plopped the sucker in her mouth. Though Damon could only see his brother's profile, he had a feeling he was riveted and thinking shit he shouldn't be thinking, like replacing that sucker with his dick. Or finger. Or both.

Green irises locked on him from across the dance floor. "Thank you, Stefan," Damon heard as plain as day.

"My. Pleasure."

Damon stood in front of them in 2.5 seconds.

Stefan feigned surprise, "Oh, look what the cat threw up, BonBon."

For a second Damon nearly lost control, but strengthened the barbed wires in his head that protected a restricted fortress. He waited for Bonnie to chastise Stefan for using a nickname she claimed to hate, and when that recrimination didn't come, his eyes blinked rapidly.

Bonnie moved in between the brothers knowing things would stop being civil very shortly. Damon's chin tilted down as he met her narrowed gaze.

"I should kill that bitch for what you made her do to me and then kill you next."

It was right on the tip of his tongue to say Krystal biting her hadn't been ordered by him. But whatever. Let the witch think what she wanted.

"From what I heard you didn't even put up a fight. You continue to do the Bennetts real proud," Damon goaded.

"Oh, in five seconds they're going to give me a standing ovation."

Delivering a killer smile that had ladies in the near vicinity giggling and blushing for no damn reason, Damon waggled his brows. "There you go over promising and under delivering."

"Stefan, say goodnight to your brother."

"Oh, yeah, Stefan I wish you really would."

"Come on, you know my money is on Bonnie all day, everyday," Stefan said.

Bonnie smiled up at the younger Salvatore who returned it, and made it no secret that he was looking between her eyes and glossy lips. A rumble or maybe a growl caught their ear and they were focused on Damon once more.

Yet in the snap of the fingers, he was gone before Bonnie could speak whatever spell she was about to launch on his head.

* * *

Damon flung himself on the couch—or more accurately he was flung on the couch by a force much deadlier and far tinier than him. He groaned and screwed his teeth into his lips to prevent a loud scream from crawling up his windpipe assisted along by his diaphragm and exiting through his mouth.

The bridge of his nose was broken. Blood wept from the contusion making Damon appear as if he were crying tears of blood. His right eye socket—fractured as was his ulna bone. He didn't want to glance down to see it slightly protruding through his forearm, but he certainly felt the intense pain of it fanning out and encompassing his entire limb from wrist to shoulder.

Righting himself on the couch, Damon licked at the blood surrounding his mouth and proceeded to spit out a fissure of it between his teeth.

He eyed the person who sauntered around his living room, face devoid of anything except boredom. "Do I have your attention now, Damon? Or do I need to make things a bit more clear?"

With one leg fully extended on the couch, the other resting on the floor, Damon painfully leaned forward, clasping his broken arm to his chest. His set the bone back into place, grunting lowly, dangerously.

"My hearing aid is on the fritz so you're gonna have to repeat your sentiments, _again," _he bit out through tight lips.

Bonnie came to a stop, folded her arms across her chest, "How did you get out?"

"Interesting story, that."

_Damon dialed a number he hadn't needed to call in close to a year. "Hey, I need you to do me a favor," he said once the line connected._

"_Damon?"_

"_The one and only," he repeated the witch's statement the night of their reunion. _

"_What the hell do you want?"_

"_There's only one reason I'd call you, and no it's not to declare my undying love and burning passion. I'm trapped in my house and I need out of it. Now."_

_Pregnant pause, "Word on the street is you flipped your switch. What kind of a warlock would I be to let a humanity-less vampire out on the loose?"_

"_I'll tell you what kind…the kind that'll be a thousand bucks richer."_

"_Two thousand." _

_Damon snorted and rolled his eyes. Extortionist. "Done. You want your money you drop what you're doing and come right now, pun not intended."_

"_I can be there in two hours."_

"_Make it an hour."_

"_I'll see what I can do."_

"_And I'll try my best to scrounge up patience while you hurry the fuck up!" _

"You bribed Luke Parker to let you out?"

Damon bobbed his head up and down. "If it's any credit to you when I told him who locked me up in the first place, which he should have known, he acted like a scared little bitch unwilling to tamper with your spell, figuring you'd come after him."

"I'll deal with him when the time is right. Back in your hole you go."

"I don't think so."

His attention was soon thwarted to the knee sliding between his splayed thighs, aimed right for his family jewels. Hands were braced on the arm rest behind him, and he gulped audibly while he craned his head backwards to gaze up and into a face that could mean everything and nothing to someone like him.

"Oh, Damon," Bonnie Bennett crooned. She slid the knuckles of her left hand along the sharp slope of his cheek. Her touch terrifyingly electric. "This cat and mouse game between us has got to stop."

"The only game being played is you using my brother to make me jealous."

"I don't have to make you something you already are."

"You think I'm jealous of you and Stefan?"

"Ah, yeah."

"I believe you _like_ our cat and mouse arrangement. It makes you feel…sexy. Look at the way you're laid over me."

To prove his point, Damon leaned forward and kissed Bonnie's breast. He grinned at her gasp and pounding heart.

Bonnie hopped off the couch and Damon like both had gone up in flames. He was on his feet, too herding her in no set direction although they were stair bound if Bonnie managed not to trip over her own two feet in the process.

"Don't touch me," the octave of her voice was paper thin.

Damon kept moving forward.

"I mean it, Damon."

Her warning went ignored.

"What do you think you're about to do?" Bonnie said.

"What you want me to."

There really was only one conclusion to make. Bonnie held out a hand to stay him though there was a quaking in her stomach that was languidly taking over. She was losing the upper ground.

"Look at you…You're so worried about Elena," Damon's eyes were feral. "The chick that made your 1994 rescue mission about her. You want to know her reason for wanting to finally do something to get you back? So she could ask you relationship advice about me and her. She didn't want you back because you were alone, because you never deserved to be stuck there, because she missed you. Nope. She wanted you back so that you could again be her modern day mammy."

Bonnie slapped _the_ taste out of his mouth. His head slowly rotated on his shoulders as he looked at her, eyes blazing. Her left hand lifted to smack his other cheek but he caught it in mid-air.

Little space separated them. The toes of their shoes were practically touching, and Damon felt the quivering witch's body heat.

"You know I'm telling you the truth because I'm the only one who ever does tell you the truth."

Bonnie's chest rose and fell rapidly.

"If your roles were reversed," Damon ran his knuckles along her jaw, "you think she'd fight as hard for you as you've fought for her?"

The witch was terrified to really examine and answer that question.

"You think she'd put your feelings above her own? Has she ever?"

Bonnie found herself trapped between a wall and Damon's washboard stomach. He wedged his knee between her thighs. Her mouth fell open on a slight cry as she felt him hard and throbbing on her hip.

"You love someone who forgets you as soon as dick is thrown into the equation. So why don't you try forgetting her for once."

It wasn't that simple! Bonnie fumed internally. She couldn't forget who she was. And she didn't poach on other people's territory. Even if she had an open invitation to do so. But…

She and Damon had already crossed a line. They kissed. His tongue had mated with hers and she _loved_ it. Yet she was so sick of everything. Sick of being the one who had to adhere to the rules, strive to do the right thing while everyone else could light matches and burn down the world without consequences and repercussions. Who the hell canonized her as the patron saint of Mystic Falls and Whitmore? Probably all those times you happily sacrificed yourself, Bon, her conscience tsked.

"Look at me," Damon commanded. Bonnie met his gaze. "All you have to do is let go. I'll catch you."

Bonnie's eyes fell to his lips. Lips that were in striking range. Lips she wanted to kiss and feel everywhere on her body. On her throat, wrapped around her nipples, fondling her belly button, suctioned to her clit. She was going to give herself an aneurysm just from thinking about it.

Damon touched her stomach, his fingertips pressed into her as her arousal permeated the muggy air between them. "Do what you want, Bonnie."

Her knees were weak. Why couldn't he look at her the way he was now with his humanity on? Why did this version of him that cared for nothing besides pleasing his own flesh have to be like this, handle her like this, talk to her like this, make her want him to the point of madness?

"I can't," she whined softly. "I can't do what I want."

"Why not?"

"Because!" she shoved him away from her, pissed off, angrier than facing that miserable bastard Kai. Angier than seeing Silas after he murdered her father. Angier than realizing her friends were content to let her rot, leaving her no choice but to save herself. She was irate, increased, infused with wrath so deep it hurt to fucking blink.

Damon breathed roughly. "If I turned it on would it be easier for you to say and do what you want?"

"If you turn it on you'll run back to _her_," Bonnie gritted out caustically. She laughed inanely for a second, vibrating with pent up frustration, anxiety, and arousal. "She'll get the best and worst parts of you. Your heart, your body, your mind, your soul and…"

"And?"

"You know all of it should belong to _me_."

Couldn't be helped, his cock jumped. "Why?"

"Because…" she struggled to find the words.

Damon persisted. "Because what Bonnie?"

Her little feet carried her the short distance she had managed to push Damon away from her. Bonnie reached for his hand put it up her skirt.

His eyes widened because the move had been unexpected. His fingers were singed with her heat. The heat pooling and pumping from the apex of her thighs. The epicenter of that mouthwatering, cock stiffening aroma that was creeping into the crevices of his brain, flirting near that elusive, metaphysical switch. Damon attempted to move his hand higher, cup her through her exceedingly wet panties, but Bonnie had his hand in a vice.

Maybe she was crazy and delirious, and in the morning she'd probably have a hard ass time looking herself in the mirror and facing certain people. She'd regret this, but now feeling regret was the_ last_ thing on her mind. Bonnie felt a dormant part of her waking up, crawling its way from beneath rubble that kept the real her pinned and buried for far too long.

"You're right. You're the only one who's ever honest with me. But I can't let you have this and then run back to her. I'm not sacrificing anything else for Elena. Not even having you while you're like this. You want this, then you need to want all of me," Bonnie cupped him through his jeans. Damon hissed and groaned, biting into his lower lip. "Just like I want all of you."

Damon closed his eyes; his head fell back as Bonnie fondled him. Caressed him with the right dichotomy of hard and soft tugs that had his toes curling in his boots. He mouthed her name but couldn't find the breath to say it. He'd agree to anything if she were to unzip, unbutton his jeans and make bare contact with his tumescent flesh.

"If we're going to mutually give each other what we want," Bonnie curled her other arm around his shoulders, "I'm game. If you're not willing to earn me…" she yanked his hand that was between her legs away, effectively throwing ice water on him. "I'm never selling myself short again."

Damon exhaled a strangled breath. He watched her walk away from him. Watched as everything around the perimeter became smaller and smaller, darker and darker until the only thing he could see was Bonnie. Was this another spell?

He followed Bonnie to the door, more like stalked, from a good distance. He gripped the edges of the doorframe as she darted outside and met his brother who had been leaning up against his ride the entire time. They whispered to one another, and Damon's chest expanded when Stefan cupped Bonnie's cheek then placed that offending hand on the small of her back as he guided her to the passenger side.

The two brothers eyed one another and in five seconds, an engine started, headlights came on, and Stefan was backing out of the driveway.

Damon replayed Bonnie's ultimatum. He wasn't in the right frame of mind to work to earn anything. Work implied effort. But he wanted her. _Badly_. Krystal had been right about him. He was a masochist. Now, it was up to him to turn the tables.

First, he needed to know if he could come and go as he pleased. Damon extended a foot outside the door and was met with no impediment. The grin broadening on his face was filled with maliciousness.

* * *

Bonnie had a horrible night of sleep. Tossing, turning, kicking the covers away, sitting up and glaring into the darkness until early rays of blue light began to illuminate her cold dorm room. She barely stayed awake in her classes, opted out of joining Koffi and another classmate for lunch. She just wanted to fall into bed to make up for the hours of sleep she lost. Maybe later head down to Skull Bar, scarf some food down, perhaps even play a round of pool which she was still terrible at, but for now sleep was priority.

Unlocking her door, she dropped her messenger bag, took two steps and stopped.

The first thing to pop out at Bonnie was the rose. The long stem rose on her pillow with the darkest red petals she'd ever seen. So dark a red they appeared black from a distance. The thorns on that bad boy looked like barbed wire and its aroma was potent enough to have her entire room smelling like a meadow. Cautious, Bonnie strolled to her bed as she furtively looked around almost anticipating being ambushed.

Her fingers brushed across a silky petal and she carefully grabbed the rose, lifted it for a brief sniff. Her eyes searched the bed for a card but she didn't find one.

That's when she noticed another anomaly. The drawers to her dresser weren't pushed in all the way.

Bonnie dropped the rose, sauntered to the bureau, and began pulling out drawer after drawer to find every stitch of clothing…

"Gone?! Where the fuck are my clothes?" she got to the last drawer to find a single pair of panties in delicate nude lace. Now she was scared and pissed.

Jotting to her closet, Bonnie flipped on the light and the only thing hanging was a slinky black dress that was so short it would probably stop right beneath her ass, and so sheer she'd be better off strutting around naked. On the floor were a pair of drool worthy heels that put out one specific PSA—fuck me. Attached to the hanger was a note that she ripped down.

"'It's on. Be ready by nine—D.'"

Bonnie didn't know what was going to happen. Couldn't make a prediction if she tried, but one thing was gaining in certainty. Whatever happened, she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't fight. Fate would have its way.

* * *

The streets were wet after a much needed rainstorm. Night had fallen on the sleepy little college town. Students milled about, delaying the inevitable of having to get serious and get some studying and work done, electing to laugh and joke around until the last possible second. They congregated in clusters outside of Hill Hall—the graduate dorms, but a lull in conversation broke at the purr of a powerful engine rolling to a stop right at the front door. The low thump of bass could be heard beyond the fiberglass body and tinted windows on a car so sleek and black it was nearly indistinguishable from darkness. Necks craned, fingers pointed as they began to wonder who was behind the wheel and who was about to be picked up.

The driver side door opened at the same time killer heels waltzed out of the building.

Eyes bulged, jaws dropped. Those standing around were stupefied.

Bonnie felt their stares, felt the power of commanding attention, turning heads. She peeped the burning jealously in her female counterparts as they volleyed between her and Damon, and the lust from males who couldn't stop staring at her specifically. Her dress left little to the imagination. It dipped severely in the back and as she suspected stopped two inches below her ass. For the first time in forever, she curled and teased her hair into a more stylish bob, and she wore lipstick and eyeliner heavier than usual. She wasn't a plain Jane sophomore, an unassuming black woman; she was Bennett and she was _excellence_.

Damon froze. His gaze left a white-hot tail as he consumed her entire body without touching before minutely shaking his head and opening the passenger side door. He wore all black, not unusual. The only difference was, instead of his customary Durango boots, black Tim's were on his feet. Bonnie found that extremely hot and she made sure it shone through her half-lidded orbs. He repeated her sentiments with a wicked half-smirk.

At the car, Bonnie took hold of the door, met Damon's probing stare. It was undetermined if his humanity was on or not, and for the time being she didn't care. She caught him staring at her lips, witnessed the change in the tempo of his breathing, like he could barely do it.

Pleased, Bonnie sunk into the seat.

She made an attempt to pull down the skirt of her dress. Useless. The fabric refused to stretch. She gave Damon a sidelong glance when he settled behind the wheel. Her thighs warmed under his perusal, every nerve in her body fired. Chest rising higher and faster, Bonnie swallowed at the bulge in Damon's jeans.

"You stole my clothes," she accused.

Damon shifted the car into gear, pulled away from the curb.

"Where's my stuff?"

The vampire palmed the steering wheel as he merged onto the main strip.

"I'm supposed to go to class for the rest of the semester dressed like this?"

Huffing he wasn't going to answer any of her questions, Bonnie thumped her head on the head rest. The world whizzed by at eighty-five miles an hour. During the drive to wherever he was taking her, Bonnie would bet Damon spent more time staring at her legs than the road.

It would be later, _much_ later, in a secluded and wooden area, one leg on the ground, the other propped on the hood of that car, back arched, Bonnie would be rendered incoherent with the occasional hiss, moan, strangled scream that she needed more, faster, that she was…

C-O-M-I-N-G!

**A/N: Bonnie's morality was really harping in my ear about how she needed to wait until Damon was free of the doppelganger before things escalated. But after events on the show and my volcanic-like hate for the show's writing and those involved, fuq it. I know some wanted Damon's humanity switch flipped on (and it might be or not) before things got to that point, but well I ain't got that kind of patience. Not anymore. It's going down. Hoped you enjoyed the short preview. Thank you for reading. Please, let me know what you think. XOXO**


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